Knowing and Doing
by sydedalus
Summary: Complete! HW established relationship. The leg gets worse and our heroes must do something, but will the cure be worse than the disease? A look at addiction and enabling. Formerly known as Shorts.
1. Pain

**Title: **Knowing and Doing  
**Author: **sy dedalus  
**Rating: **T  
**Pairing:** House/Wilson  
**Summary: **HW established relationship. The leg gets worse and our heroes must do something, but will the cure be worse than the disease? A look at addiction and enabling.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters, etc.

**Note:** This story used to be called "Shorts" and included two chapters before this one. Those two chapters are now stand-alone fics ("Conference" and "Rosh Hashanah"). This story has been re-titled and partially reorganized because of the great, gaping chasm between its inception and what really happened as I wrote it.

Before you read, here's a note on setting and chronology in this fic, because I've been told it's somewhat confusing.

**Setting:** Two years and a few months after season 3.

**The Original Hook Up Occurred:** A few months after the end of season 3, shortly after House's first morphine rehab (which is a fictional event and part of this AU).

**Chapter Chronology:  
**Chapter 1 – Eh, day 1, let's say; note that House's leg has been noticeably worse, but not _that _worse, for about two months at the beginning of this chapter  
Chapter 2 – Two weeks later  
Chapter 3 – The next morning  
Chapter 4 – Same day as chapter 4  
Chapter 5 – Same day as chapter 4  
Chapter 6 – Same day as chapter 4  
Chapter 7 – About a week later  
Chapter 8 – One night and one day later (or, the next night)  
Chapter 9 – The next morning  
Chapter 10 – That night  
Chapter 11 – The next morning; Wilson's flashbacks skip to over two years earlier, pre-hook-up, during the first morphine rehab, and to the time shortly following chapter 4 (about two weeks prior to chapter 11's "present"); this is the most confusing part  
Chapter 12 – The same day  
Chapter 13 – That afternoon  
Chapter 14 – Late that night / early the next morning 

The whole thing happens over the span of about a month. There are a few other changes but nothing too confusing.

* * *

**Pain**

The thunk of a door closing startled Wilson out of a deep sleep. Automatically, he reached for his alarm clock, mistaking it for what had woken him. The LED backlight illuminated the time just as he realized the clock hadn't been buzzing, and as soon as his hand shot out to find House's side of the bed cold, he heard quiet footsteps in the living room.

He sighed, rubbed his face, and forced himself out of the warm cocoon of sheets and comforter. The alarm would have sounded in three minutes anyway. The part of him that wasn't immediately frustrated and upset that House was up again appreciated House's consideration. However, he was also chagrined that House hadn't woken him earlier. If House was in enough pain that he had to be up, Wilson wanted to know about it, not to be left to sleep while House gritted his teeth and waited.

Seeing the pool of light emanating from the kitchen and knowing that House was still trying to be considerate, Wilson detoured to the bathroom first.

A month. No, two months—this was April. For two months it had been worse than it normally was.

Wilson swished Listerine around in his mouth and avoided his reflection in the mirror. They were both getting older…but not that old. House wasn't even fifty yet. Wilson spat the mouthwash out, combing his memory for any stressful events that might have triggered a pain increase. He came up with nothing. Again. With another disheartened sigh, he left for the kitchen.

House was leaning against the island, holding his right foot a few inches above the ground. He glanced quickly at Wilson but said nothing, his grip tightening on the table. Wilson poured himself a glass of water and drank half of it before he spoke.

"How long have you been up?" he asked casually, leaning against the counter with the water glass.

House's head dropped a fraction of an inch. "Few hours," he muttered.

"Vicodin helping?"

"A little."

House's knuckles whitened and he bared his teeth and looked away. Wilson wasn't sure if he was reacting to the questioning or to pain. They'd put behind them the fact that House hated revealing the details of his pain and that Wilson had to know those details—was entitled to know those details or he couldn't be of any help and he'd become anxious and frustrated as a result—but it would never _really _be behind them. So when he spoke again Wilson kept his eyes fixed on the cabinet that contained the nice dishes Cuddy had given them as an anniversary present.

"How many since midnight?"

House expelled a breath and shook his head. "Four."

Wilson tried hard to conceal his surprise, but he realized House would pick up on it no matter how well he hid it, so he allowed himself a sigh.

"This is the third time this week," Wilson said, more to himself than to House.

House, to his credit, didn't turn on Wilson.

"I know," he began, stopping himself and shaking his head. He rocked back and forth on his left foot and glanced up. "But I don't want—it's only been a few months."

Since his last MRI, Wilson supplied. He dipped his head in acknowledgement. House picked up his cane and walked heavily into the living room. Doing laps around the furniture. Last week Wilson had noticed that House had actually worn a path in the wood flooring around the couch and coffee table. His track.

Wilson drained the glass and listened to him making the first lap.

After House had done five laps, Wilson put the glass in the sink and went to lean against the door frame between the kitchen and living room.

"You think you need it," he said. "I know you want it…and I wish you didn't want or need it…but I think you do. Need it."

Wilson saw the kitchen light reflected in the whites of House's eyes as they flickered toward him. House kept walking; waiting for the catch.

Wilson rubbed his face. "I don't want to—I'm _not _going to make it conditional. But if it's this bad…we both know you should get another work-up."

Wilson watched him, looking for any sign of a change in his pace or his step. Nothing. He was restless, scared. Really scared. Too scared to make some sniping comment about stating the obvious.

Wilson rubbed his face again, sighed, and reached between the refrigerator and the wall for the step-ladder.

"Go lie down," he said. "I'll get it."

He waited on the threshold for House either to continue pacing or leave the living room. When House didn't make a left turn at the couch but continued down the hall, Wilson's heart sank a little. House was really, really scared if he was taking orders.

Wilson turned on a lamp in the living room and unfolded the ladder. His entire being rebelled at giving House morphine—House had struggled too hard with the psychological side of morphine addiction for him to do this in good conscience—but he would rather know that House needed it and was taking it and, most importantly, how much he was taking than deny the pain and force House to deceive him.

His stomach clenched as he ascended the ladder. House's pain had never increased for any physical reason in the past. It always turned out to be stress. But they'd gone through all the possible stressors in House's life a few days ago when the pain had first gotten him out of bed early. Other than the usual work-related stress, House had been on a remarkably even keel lately. Everything seemed fine in their relationship. Wilson's stomach clenched more tightly at the thought that something wasn't fine between them and he didn't know what it was. Maybe House was bored, he considered as he folded the step-ladder up and put it back next to the fridge. His lip automatically tugged upward: the quality of the sex, even with House's extra pain, didn't indicate boredom. But just as quickly his mouth settled back into an unhappy line: he didn't know what was wrong. He was helpless.

He poured a glass of water for House, collected the box, and padded toward the bedroom.

House had turned on the lamp on his side of the bed and was viciously kneading his thigh through his pajama pants. Wilson noticed the sweatshirt House been wearing lying in a discarded heap on the bed and tried not to grimace: House hadn't even given it one of his characteristically inaccurate tosses toward the laundry pile. The deep lines on his face, the sick grey cast, the undisguised hurt that flashed in his eyes before he could mask it: Wilson knew he'd made the right decision.

He nodded for House to lie down and took the sweatshirt to the laundry basket.

"It's not your mom's birthday," Wilson began as he entered the lock's combination. "Not your dad's birthday. Not their anniversary. Not our anniversary. Not your birthday. Not my birthday. Not Stacy's birthday. Not that anniversary. Not _that _anniversary. Not the anniversary of the break-up. Not the anniversary of her coming back. Not their wedding anniversary."

He collected a vial, syringe, tourniquet, wipe, and piece of gauze. No gloves in the kit. He glanced up at House: rubbing his leg and staring at the ceiling. Waiting. Scared.

"Does _anything_ happen in April?" he asked rhetorically.

"Taxes," House grunted.

Wilson broke into a smile, feeling a little better. Taxes. Beneath the pain and fear, House was still there.

Wilson gave the rubber tourniquet to House. He ignored the eerie mastery with which House tied the tourniquet to his bicep one-handed and drew two cc's more than he really wanted to draw. House prepared a vein with the same eerie mastery as Wilson opened the alcohol wipe. Wipe and syringe he offered to House. With a minute shake of his head, eyes traveling from the offering to Wilson, House indicated that Wilson should do it.

As he administered the drug, Wilson reflected that this shouldn't make him love House more, but it did. Because allowing someone else to control his meds represented a level of trust Wilson sometimes thought House could no longer reach.

House stared at the ceiling until Wilson pressed the gauze against his arm and snapped the tourniquet off. Dutifully, House bent his arm to staunch the bleeding.

Wilson threw away the paper trash and left for the kitchen to put the recapped used syringe in a plastic bag so he could dispose of it later at work. He stopped in the living room to gather books, magazines, and journals, and to hunt briefly for one of House's portable video games before returning to the bedroom.

House's eyes popped open when Wilson set the reading material on the bed. Drugged, Wilson could see, but he also recognized relief and thanks. He gave House a pained smile.

House tracked him as he rounded the bed to the box.

"I have a confession to make," House said in slightly slurred voice. "I'm actually straight."

Wilson sniffed and smiled for real. "Lightweight," he mocked.

"_Straight_ lightweight," House amended, eyes fluttering shut.

Wilson's smile disappeared as he gathered a vial of compazine, two new syringes, and the accompanying wipes and gauze.

"Don't give me a reason to worry, House," he said, sounding more threatening than he meant to sound.

House kept his eyes closed. "Just so tired," he said.

Wilson nodded to himself. Pain alone was exhausting, and House hadn't been sleeping much this week. Nonetheless, he dumped the supplies and took House's wrist between his fingers.

House blinked up at him, glanced over at the paraphernalia on the night table, and let his eyelids drop to half-mast.

"Feel dizzy?" Wilson asked, still counting seconds in his head.

"No," House answered. "It's not too much."

Wilson had to concede that House would know if it were. His pulse was fine. Wilson let his wrist go and started organizing the supplies.

House's gaze shifted sleepily at the sound of rustling, then up to Wilson. Asking. Surprised.

_He shouldn't be that surprised_, Wilson thought, wondering if he'd done anything lately that indicated he didn't trust House. But even as he wondered he was aware that he had to fight the impulse to lock the morphine back up and hide it. It wasn't that he didn't trust House...he just had a hard time leaving a vial full of morphine on a table next to a recovering morphine addict. Even if House needed it.

"Call me first," Wilson said in answer to House's unspoken question.

Wilson glanced over and their eyes met. House nodded slightly and blinked like a toddler resisting a nap.

"And _take_ the compazine," Wilson added, going to the dresser to pick out clean underwear for work.

"Makes my butt burn," House mumbled.

"Take it anyway," Wilson insisted.

When he'd moved everything he needed to get ready for work to the living room, Wilson grazed a finger against House's unshaven cheek and bent down for a quick kiss. House kissed back, just barely, but enough to reassure Wilson that he was okay.

"Call if you need anything," Wilson said.

House made a low sound of acknowledgement.

Wilson paused for one last look to help him get through the morning, then snapped off the lamp and quietly closed the bedroom door.


	2. The Monster

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

Two weeks later.

* * *

**The Monster**

Thoroughly wrung-out, wasted, limp, Wilson cut the car engine and sagged forward, laying his head on the steering wheel. The little green monster he saw when he pictured worry had been gnawing larger and larger chunks from his patience and empathy reserves as the day had progressed. Now that he was almost home, it seemed to swallow them whole. He let out a tired sigh and got out of the car.

Worse than the increasing size of the monster was the fact that people were noticing the toll that worry was taking on him. Noticing and commenting. Pitying. He understood House a little better now.

Ascending the apartment steps, he recalled with annoyance the way Cuddy had all but forced him to leave work early when she'd seen him fidgeting and unable to concentrate in funding meeting this morning. Then Brown had offered to take on some of his cases and duties until, as he put it, things were more under control. Wilson appreciated the concern and kindly declined both accommodation attempts, but he knew that if this went on much longer, he wouldn't be able to say no again. He hated that fact. He didn't want to lose the control he had any more than House did, but he recognized that he would have to. Because if this went on much longer, he would lose his mind.

Much longer. He snorted at the idea. Only two weeks had passed since that early morning morphine dose—two weeks of mostly bad days where House needed two shots of morphine to keep the pain manageable. He'd had two good days where only one sufficed and four very bad days where he needed another booster. Yesterday had been a very bad day. Wilson was tired from having been awakened at 1 o'clock by a sweaty, shaking House who was barely in control of himself. If tonight was that bad, he'd determined to take the morning off. He would know soon after he entered the apartment just how bad today had been. But still, it had only been two weeks.

Two long weeks. He'd seen many patients and families through an extremely long fortnight, but he recognized that two weeks wasn't really that much time. Not when it could go on indefinitely. Not when House, stubborn, stubborn House, refused tests. House was scared to death, Wilson knew, and it was easier for him—for anyone—to take a shot of morphine and defer knowledge than it was to go find out what was going on. House, who was so rational he seemed non-human at times, wanted to know the truth about everything and everyone except himself. It was annoying. It made him understand Stacy better, too. But none of that was helpful to him. What he needed was for House to find some courage fast, because if he didn't, Wilson knew he was going turn into a jibbering ball of stress and worry who couldn't function any more than House could with the searing pain in his leg.

But he didn't really blame House for wussing out. Not really.

He let himself in, put his bag down, and headed straight for the bedroom. No lights were on. The worry monster chewed with abandon.

In the dim late afternoon light filtered through an overcast sky and gauzy curtains, House appeared to be asleep. But Wilson could hear thin, scratchy jazz from House's iPod headphones and see the tension in his body. As usual, his right hand was vice-gripped to his thigh. With a lick of its lips, the monster swallowed the last of Wilson's reserves. Utterly used up, he let himself drop on the bed and started working on his tie.

House breathed in suddenly and Wilson heard the zip of fingers moving through sheets, then the jazz became louder under the sound of House moving in the covers.

By the time Wilson had the knot undone, House's weight had shifted toward him. Wilson felt a warm hand on his shoulder. The tie pooled on the floor and Wilson leaned forward to rest an elbow on his leg and plant forehead to palm. Wilson raked his hand up to his hairline and House's hand slipped down his back and fell to the bed.

Wilson sat just long enough to take his shoes off, then stood and walked across the room to the dresser, untucking his shirt as he went. He could feel House watching him but he didn't know what to say.

For his part, House did what he did best: he acted on a conclusion he had already reached.

Wilson heard the crinkle of magazines being moved, then a whomp as a stack of them hit the floor. Shirt half-off, he glanced over his shoulder at House. House glanced up at him and over at the empty side of the bed, then began fiddling with his iPod. Getting the message that House wanted him to come to bed, Wilson went back to removing his shirt. The monster disgorged part of his sanity.

Wilson heard House get to his feet with a poorly-suppressed grunt and limp heavily out of the room. Fumbling with his pants, he listened hard until he heard something normal. The splash of water against water. Okay. He stepped out of his pants and rooted through a drawer for something comfortable to wear.

By the time House had washed his hands and limped heavily back to the bedroom, Wilson was putting away his shoes and tie. Neatly. Overly neatly. So he wouldn't have to watch House limp back to bed. House hated it, and Wilson didn't need to see the limp to know how bad it was. House's course breathing and lop-sided gait told Wilson that it wasn't a good day. But if House was up on his own, it wasn't a very bad day yet either.

House was arranging his legs on the bed when Wilson turned around. The monster bit off a small piece as Wilson dutifully rounded to his side of the bed and sat down. Not entirely sure what House wanted, he stayed in place, feet on the floor, and made no attempt to get into the bed.

House's warm hand appeared on his shoulder again and gently tugged. The monster gave the piece back.

After a series of shifts, Wilson found himself on his side with House's arm around his chest. He was restless and he wanted to pace and yell at the pain that had taken House away from him, but instead he let House's warmth and the soft sound of his breathing calm him.

Gradually, he was lulled into a half-sleep. Then House spoke, his voice reverberating through Wilson's body.

"I'm getting an MRI tomorrow."

Awakened, Wilson turned his head in confusion. "You made an appointment?"

"Just did," House answered, exerting more pressure with his arm to keep Wilson still. "With you. To squeeze me in."

Wilson settled back down. "What brought this on?"

"I miss sex," House replied. "Food. Pooping. You."

Wilson relaxed a little more. He'd been worried about House becoming psychologically dependent on morphine again. Vicodin was bad but manageable. Morphine would be too much.

"Morphine is great," House continued, as if he'd read Wilson's mind. "But sex is better. And you look like the walking dead."

"Says the Creature from the Black Lagoon," Wilson retorted.

The light jab of House's soft laugh made Wilson feel warmer. He reached up to grasp House's hand, holding it to his chest and gently rubbing the hard, calloused palm. He hadn't realized how badly he'd needed something as simple as this.

But someone had to articulate the big question and Wilson knew it had to be him. He waited a moment, savoring the quiet happiness. House would already have an answer, Wilson knew, but the quiet was good. He wanted it to last, even if he knew it couldn't.

Slowly, he spoke. "What if it's bad?"

House, who was half-asleep himself, waited until he inhaled to speak, not willing to break the even cycle of breathing. "Then something happens," he answered. "And if it's good, something else happens."

"How cavalier," Wilson quipped.

House shook against him briefly with another laugh. Wilson closed his eyes, smiling, and exhaled worry and fear. House could make him feel so bad unintentionally and then undo all of that badness with one intentionally good act. Relaxed and content, Wilson conceded that that was more than enough.

After a while, House reclaimed his hand from Wilson's and began moving it. Down. Wilson's body, which had been responding to his positive mood and the proximity of House for the past fifteen minutes, begged him to keep his mouth shut and let House do what he wanted, but the monster was still there, chewing, worrying.

He shifted slightly to indicate resistance. "You don't need a shot?" he asked.

Their unspoken agreement was that House would tell Wilson if he needed one. If he didn't need one now, nearly ten hours since his last, maybe today was a good day after all. On the other hand…

"I had one a few hours ago," House said. "Left a message with one of your nurses."

Wilson had received no such message. The monster grew, chanting _he's using on his own again_. He ignored the monster and made himself think of possible explanations.

"Was it in crypto-code?" he asked, starting to squirm in response to House's roving hand.

"If that's what the kids are calling metaphor now."

House's voice rumbling against his back. Hot breath on his neck. God.

"Oh, _that's _what that was," Wilson said, trying to keep his thoughts together. "She told me you didn't leave a name."

"She's an idiot," House replied. He shifted closer and pressed down on a special spot. "Shut up and let me enjoy this."

Wilson swallowed, wanting to protest, but House had a very well-trained right hand. He closed his eyes and let House work. The monster shrank as endorphin release increased.

Eight wonderful minutes later, both of them had sunk into sleep. The monster slept too.


	3. Answers

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

The next day. The medicine in this one, while not probable, is actually possible. It's also kind of sketchy, but remains something that could potentially happen to House. (For reference, a neuroma is a tumor that forms on regenerating nerve cells. They are typically benign. Also, morphine causes urinary retention.)

* * *

**Answers**

"What's _taking _so long?" House griped. His sense of time told him he'd been inside this white coffin of a machine for over twenty minutes. The quality of Wilson's banter had seriously diminished over the past ten minutes, too.

Wilson pressed the microphone's button from the other side of the glass. "Getting some finer cuts," he answered. "Double checking."

House stared at the concave off-white ceiling and spoke as if he were addressing God. "The nerves are regenerating, aren't they."

Never surprised that House knew a test result before the test was over, Wilson pressed the button down again. "Looks like it. I think the scar tissue is interfering with the reformation of the pathways. Paged a radiologist a few minutes ago—should be here soon. Might be another ten minutes of scanning, though. Holding up okay?"

"Bored," House answered. "Gotta pee."

"You said you didn't have to go earlier."

"It's the morphine."

"Everything's the morphine," Wilson retorted. "Think you can make it?"

"What else are you looking for?" House questioned.

Wilson hesitated. "You've got two neuromas," he answered. "They appear to be benign but I want to get a good look."

House nodded to himself. A neuroma made the most sense given the nature of the pain. He'd been reading up on them while Wilson was at work. Part of his reluctance to get another MRI was the possibility of the neuroma being malignant. That idea was worse than the pain. Wilson would know too much and worry too much. But when Wilson had come home yesterday afternoon, he'd had realized just how much Wilson was already worrying. Suddenly, the choice had become so easy.

"Know what your problem is?" House said. "You're _too_ good for me."

"Yeah, tumors are great for you," Wilson replied. "Stop interfering with the scan."

"I'm serious," House countered. "If you hadn't started feeding me right, I'd still be on Vicodin."

"You're welcome," Wilson said. "Shut up."

The door to the control booth opened and a harried middle-aged man entered.

"Radiologist is here," Wilson relayed.

"Keep the mic on," House instructed.

He listened as Wilson and the radiologist discussed the scan in progress, piecing it together in his mind based on the locations and slice sizes they spoke of. At the same time, he was conflicted about this new development. Neuromas meant surgery, but the surgeon could remove the scar tissue that was blocking nerve regeneration while he was at it. Once the neuromas were gone, much of the new pain would be gone too, but nerve regeneration was a lengthy process and there was no guarantee new neuromas wouldn't form in the coming months. All of it meant more pain while the nerves were regenerating. _If _they kept regenerating. His age was against him. The nine years since the original surgery were against him. But his environment was for him—otherwise, he was convinced, this wouldn't have begun in the first place. Good food, good moods, good sex, and plenty of each was such a drastic change for him… He smiled to himself: Wilson was taking it the wrong way. This was going to hurt for a while, but once it was over he'd be better than he'd been since the second ketamine treatment had worn off last year. And if—

The noise of the machine ended abruptly and he was lurched forward out of the white coffin. Why the hospital had yet to get an open MRI was beyond him. He made a mental note to bark at Cuddy about it.

As soon as he was clear of the machine, he sat up and swung his legs off of the table.

He nearly ran into Wilson and the radiologist at the door.

"Move or I will pee on you," he growled at the radiologist.

The man scowled but moved out of his way.

"Wilson," House called, already several long strides down the hallway. "Bring the scans." He glanced back at the radiologist. "You can come too."

The radiologist scowled again and Wilson shrugged apologetically before following House to the men's room.

Too used to House's quirks to comment, Wilson simply stood next to House at the urinal and held one of the first scans up to the light so House could see it.

"The others aren't ready yet," Wilson said. "But this gives you an idea."

House squinted at the bundle of nerves and muscles in front of him. "Huh."

"What you expected?" Wilson asked.

"A little more than I expected," House answered. He glanced sideways at Wilson. "The neuromas?"

"Positioned relatively well," Wilson answered. "Shouldn't be hard to excise."

Uncomfortable, Wilson looked down at his shoes. "I'd probably have the biopsy done before you woke up."

House nodded faintly, then frowned and looked down too. "Dammit." He shifted and shook his head. "Could you…turn on a faucet or something?"

Wordlessly, Wilson went to the sink and turned both taps on. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

"That gown does wonderful things for your legs," he quipped.

House's shoulders shook once, but he was otherwise occupied.

Wilson found something else to look at. "We do this today," he began, "you could have all of it out of your system by tomorrow night."

House was silent for a moment, intent on the problem before him. Then he turned his head slightly to the left and spoke. "What makes you think I want to do it today?"

"Because…the sooner you do it, the sooner you feel better," Wilson said slowly, answering as if the question were inane. "Why? What are you thinking?"

"Nothing," House replied, "I—oh, thank God." His head tipped back of its own accord and he let out a small, happy sigh.

Wilson waited for the subtle change in posture that told him House was done, then spoke. "You should get a prostate exam once this is over."

House reclaimed his cane and turned toward the sink. "Will you do it? Please say yes." He leered with exaggeration at Wilson.

Wilson sniffed a laugh and smiled.

Once House had finished drying his hands, he stopped and leaned on his cane, purposefully eyeing the floor.

"Who do you think you could get today?"

His eyes flicked up at Wilson as if in supplication, then back to the floor.

"I don't know," Wilson answered. "I haven't seen the schedule yet."

House took a deep breath, then nodded to himself. "Get someone with good hands."

With that, he left the room.

Wilson lingered for a moment, smiling to himself, then pushed off from the wall and followed House.


	4. Soon

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

People have asked about the whereabouts of the other characters since this is set in the future. Let's say that Cameron and Chase have taken nice positions at other hospitals in their respective fields and that Foreman, perhaps believing that House will only be around so long, has taken a tenure-track job in the diagnostics department. There are three new ducklings. But this is a House/Wilson piece and a House/Wilson piece it will remain. Thanks for the reviews. This plot thing is rolling right along.

* * *

**Soon**

Cuddy paused at the door to take in the scene before her: House in a recliner, leg propped up on an untouched hospital bed, gown a little too short for the way he was sitting, intent on the video game he was playing; Wilson standing next to him, gloved and bearing a cannula, not looking too patient.

"Need your arm, House," Wilson nettled. "Believe it or not, I have other things to do today."

"I'm not the center of your universe?" House answered, never taking his eyes from the screen. "You wound me, Jimmy."

"Come on," Wilson whined. "You've beaten that game, what, six times already? Who brought you that thing, anyway?"

"One of the minions," House replied. "The redhead I think."

"Randall?"

"Sure, why not."

Cuddy smiled at the scene. It was so normal. Her oncologist looked rested for the first time in over a week and even if her infectious disease jerk was the pale, gaunt scarecrow he'd been before Wilson had gotten a hold of him, he was acting normal. He hadn't been acting normal since he'd stopped coming to work two weeks ago. Either in too much pain or too drugged to be himself, Wilson had said. And scared. But now… Now she simply smiled.

Having given herself time to be happy for them, she quickly adopted the administrative mask her job required of her.

"House," she barked from the door.

Both of them jumped and House's face settled into a sulk.

"Aw, you killed me," he complained.

"Thanks," Wilson said to her, pinning House's arm to the chair before he could restart the game.

As she approached them, Cuddy could see the red pin-pricks on House's arm. Idly, she wondered how his drug rehab would go this time. Years of training asserted themselves and she pushed sympathy aside.

"The nurses can do that," she said to Wilson.

He glanced briefly at her. "You really want him near the nurses?"

"You have other patients," Cuddy returned. "Lots of them."

"He's my patient until the biopsy comes back negative," Wilson countered in a less-than-thrilled tone.

"Ow," House complained. "You're no good with the big needles. Stay out of daddy's tool box from now on."

"Baby," Wilson muttered as he taped the cannula to House's hand.

"And why'd you have to call her?" House grumbled.

"Because I'm your primary," Cuddy answered with an eye roll. "Vincent agreed to come in this afternoon. I need a time."

"Vincent? That's the best you could do?" House griped, already scratching the tape.

"He's the best surgeon in the hospital," Cuddy retorted. "I had to grant more favors than you're worth to get him today."

"Please tell me you didn't sell your first-born," House said. "She's so cute for someone with only four teeth. But where she gets her looks is a mystery to me."

"Five teeth," Cuddy corrected impatiently. She drummed her fingers on the foot of the bed. "Still need a time."

"Nothing to eat since last night," Wilson answered while he programmed the I.V. "He had some water at six. Six?"

House shrugged. "Six-ish."

"Okay, seven," Wilson corrected. He turned to Cuddy. "Three o'clock?"

"I'll tell him," Cuddy confirmed. She hesitated for a moment. "It goes without saying that you can have all the time you need," she said to House. Glancing to Wilson, she added, "We need you here, but the same goes for you." Looking back to House, she continued, "Just don't take too long."

House grinned maliciously. "Foreman in over his head?"

Cuddy tipped her head to the side. "He's good, but he's not you. And one of your fellows keeps hounding me about when you'll be back. Something about taking the fellowship to work with you."

"Is that the bimbo, the pusher, or the whore?" House asked impishly. "My memory isn't what it used to be."

"It's Randall," Cuddy answered with another eye roll.

"The one who brought you your game," Wilson added, also rolling his eyes.

"The whore," House said with a knowing nod. "I suspected."

"Yeah, they love you," Cuddy retorted. She stood to leave. "Get better," she said to House. "I need you back here, doing your job."

"I bet that's not all you need—oomph." House glowered at Wilson, rubbing his shoulder. "Kidding."

Cuddy just smiled and shook her head at the two of them.

"The twins look great!" House called after her as she left the room. "Ow, hey—really, _kidding_," she heard him add.

With Cuddy gone, Wilson leaned against the bed and House resumed his game, still shooting sulky looks at Wilson for jabbing him.

"I shouldn't be jealous of this Randall character, should I?" Wilson asked.

"So not my type," House said, focused on the game. "Redheads don't do it for me." His lip curled devilishly. "And you should be much more worried about Cuddy."

Wilson kicked House's chair this time. House grunted, thumbs flying over the video game controls.

Wilson picked up an empty urinal, shook it to get House's attention, then placed it next to the chair.

"Okay," Wilson said, straightening up, "I think that's it. I'll leave a booster with the nurses. Need anything else?"

"Nope," House replied. "Randall brought me extra games and batteries. What service."

Wilson batted House's shoulder again.

"Hey," House protested, frantically pressing buttons to keep his character alive. "Wife beater. So not cool."

Wilson ignored his comments and leaned down to kiss his cheek. "I'll stop by in a few hours."

"Wait a second," House said, concentrating on killing a few bad guys first. "There."

He paused the game and reached up for Wilson's neck, pulling him closer to kiss him seriously.

"Make it sooner than that," House said, his eyes searching Wilson's.

Wilson saw anxiety and fear there, and put a reassuring hand on House's shoulder. "Okay. I will."

House's grip tightened and he began rubbing Wilson's jaw with his thumb. "In fact, don't leave at all. I know a game we could play."

Wilson's eyes fell closed. "Not at work, House. We agreed."

"And we've broken that agreement how many times?" House replied.

Wilson forced his eyes open. He put a hand on House's wrist and gently pulled House's hand from his neck. "You're okay. You've got your game. I'll see you soon."

"Sooner than that," House insisted.

"Soon," Wilson replied.

"Sooner."

Wilson brushed House's cheek and stepped back. "Cuddy's kid is more mature," he said. "Cuter, too."

"But I have more teeth," House retorted. He resumed the video game, not without a little pouting. "Go play with your pets."

"Be good," Wilson said, heading toward the door. "No lawsuits today."

He waited for House to acknowledge him. Nothing.

"I'll stop by in an hour."

"Sooner than that," House said, eyes on the game.

From the doorway, Wilson reminded himself that House was facing more leg surgery and (he hadn't forgotten this one) the possibility of cancer. He wasn't in pain now—not much pain, anyway—but he would be soon. Neuromas hurt. Really, really hurt. They explained why he'd spent most of the last two weeks in bed instead of pacing. And he was still scared. Surgery in only six hours now when he'd brought House in today fully expecting to take him back home after the MRI. Surgery. On the leg.

"Okay," Wilson replied with a smile. "Sooner than that."

House smiled ever-so-slightly and taking his cue, Wilson disappeared with a faint whoosh of white coat.


	5. Intimacy

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

* * *

**Intimacy**

The lights were off and the room was quiet when Wilson returned from answering a 911 page. House appeared to be asleep, so he took soft steps to the chair he'd been in and out of all day.

If House was asleep and not agonizing about the impending surgery, so much the better. Wilson had left a top-off of morphine for him when he'd needed the booster before lunch. If it was too much, well, this one time wouldn't do that much damage. He'd rather have House comfortable than hurting and worrying. _There_, he caught himself again: his judgment was compromised. But he'd already arranged it with Cuddy so that she would be handling House's post-op pain management. All of it. Hopefully. If the biopsy was negative. He wasn't letting himself think about what would happen if it was positive. He couldn't.

Linen rustled next to him. Wilson looked up to find House observing him from behind two tiny slits. He looked so tired. Wilson caught himself about to tell House to go back to sleep before he remembered that that never, ever worked.

House licked his lips. "You're back," he said thickly.

Out of habit, Wilson took House's right hand in both of his. "Thought you were sleeping."

"Sort of," House responded. "Not really."

House made no effort to sit up or move at all. The extra dose had nixed what little physical resistance he'd had left. He assumed that was the idea behind leaving it. But he liked Wilson's hands on his and he wanted Wilson to know he liked them, so with effort he rubbed one of them with his thumb.

Wilson smiled. As much as he didn't want House using hard narcotics at high doses, he had to admit that House was a great dope.

"What time is it?" House asked.

"Almost two-thirty," Wilson answered without having to check his watch. "They'll take you to prep soon."

"Yeah," House replied sluggishly. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, trying not to think, trying just to enjoy Wilson's hands clasping his.

Wilson, too, was content with the silence. Time held itself still between them.

"What was the emergency?" House asked after a while.

"What emergency?"

In the dim light, House could just make out Wilson's brow furrowing.

"You left," House clarified. "You got a page. What was it?"

"You really want to know?" Wilson asked.

"I'm asking."

Wilson sighed. "The usual. Pick any of the usual things. This time it was multi-system failure. Patient's on a vent in the ICU."

House breathed out as quickly as he could, trying to snort. "Your job sucks," he said.

"Sometimes it does," Wilson agreed.

"Like today?" House asked.

"Like today."

"Wish it didn't," House mumbled. "Wish I was…better…at being there."

"You're getting sentimental, House," Wilson teased. "Keep it up and you get a big dose of Narcan."

But Wilson felt warmer inside, even if it was just the morphine talking. Because it wasn't just the morphine talking, and they both knew it.

"Wish…you didn't have to…wait…worry," House added, eyes closed, voice barely there.

Wilson squeezed his hand: _it's okay_.

House opened his eyes suddenly, having thought of something. "You scrubbing in?"

"Hadn't planned to," Wilson answered, trying to discern what House wanted him to do based on House's bleary gaze. "I can if you want me to."

House closed his eyes and swallowed with effort. "No," he murmured. "You shouldn't. Shouldn't do that to yourself."

"I'm fine," Wilson replied.

House laughed: a quick, short expulsion of air. He blinked heavily at Wilson again.

"You sound like me."

Wilson half-shrugged, knowing that House was right but not wanting to admit it.

"D'you eat?" House asked, his head lolling in Wilson's direction.

Wilson hesitated. "I'm going to."

The bleary stare returned. "You didn't eat," House said. He didn't wait for Wilson to confirm it: he closed his eyes again and swallowed. "You're gonna pass out, Jimmy, then where will we be?"

"Is your throat dry?" Wilson interrupted.

House licked his lips and tried to swallow, not catching the deliberate change of subject. "Yeah."

Wilson jumped up and filled the tip of a spoon with melting ice chips before House could turn his head to see what was going on.

"This is gonna get me in trouble," Wilson said, mostly to himself.

House paid him no attention, gratefully accepting the little bit of moisture. Wilson set the spoon aside and lingered near the head of the bed. He reached out to gently brush House's hair, knowing House probably wouldn't appreciate it but unable to stop himself.

"Want some Versed?" Wilson offered.

House blinked sleepily. "Why would I want to forget this?" he asked, only slightly sarcastically. He smiled faintly again. "You might need some, though."

"I'd take it if I could," Wilson admitted.

He leaned in to kiss House's cheek lightly. "You are so high right now, you know that?"

House laughed quietly. "Whose fault is that?" He breathed in and closed his eyes. "God, you smell good."

Wilson smiled. "One of us has to," he said and kissed House's cheek again.

"You charmer," House said bemusedly. "Really know how to get into a guy's pants."

"That's where I like to be."

Wilson drew back, forcing himself to stop kissing House, even chastely. House was in no condition. House hadn't been in any condition to do anything but make out sloppily in so many long days. A chaste kiss was doing things to Wilson no chaste kiss should ever do. He allowed himself the comfort of rubbing a thumb through House's bristly face, but nothing else.

House savored the contact, eyes closed, remembering how good things were.

"Miss you there," House murmured. "Miss me there."

Eyes opened and searched upward for Wilson.

"Help me kick this stuff, okay?" Serious, honest, intent. "I'm tired of just dreaming about sex."

Wilson smiled wryly. "And I'm tired of washing boxers, sheets, and the back of my legs every morning."

"Funny way of saying yes," House mumbled through up-turned lips. He was vaguely aware that he was smiling much more than he normally did. His face ached from fighting the morphine's demand that his muscles relax.

A tap on the door startled them both. Wilson glanced over his shoulder and beckoned the nurse and orderly in.

"Time to go," he said, brushing House's rough cheek one last time. "Ready?"

"Stupid question," House murmured.

Wilson saw him cringe slightly. He took House's hand again. "You'll be okay. I'll be there. I'll make sure nothing happens."

House nodded and swallowed, clearly trying to keep himself composed. His hand tightened around Wilson's. Wilson squeezed back.

Just as quickly, House's hand relaxed. He opened tired eyes and glanced slowly from his hand to Wilson's face.

"People are going to think we're in love," he murmured as the shuffling of feet and squeak of a gurney's wheels filled the room.

Wilson's mouth quirked. "Heaven forbid."

Wilson pulled his hand back: palm first, then thumb, sliding finger joints, and fingertips last with a reluctant bounce from the warm surface of House's flesh.

House smiled at the care Wilson took. Such small details. Wilson got them so right. He realized slowly that he_ was _really high if he could only think such dopey thoughts. And even more slowly, the importance of the dopey thinking dawned on him. He told himself to get Wilson back in the nastiest way possible for the gratitude he felt right now.

The presences in the room shifted and House sensed that everyone was ready but him. Looking up, he saw Wilson's eyes ask the question again: _Ready?_

House breathed in and shut his eyes, concentrating on that nasty thing he'd do to Wilson.

"Okay."


	6. Pig

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

More. The research in this is real, except that it hasn't been done on pigs yet. Just rats so far. But pigs are next.

* * *

**Pig**

"Hey."

Wilson's voice sounded excited, happy. Calm, too. Sort of. If he could be calm and excited at once. House liked to hear it. Most of the time. Most of the time Wilson's proximity relaxed him. He relaxed.

"House? You there?"

Right. Wilson hadn't learned the telepathy trick yet.

House struggled to open his eyes—or his mouth—or both. Glue. Something like glue. Something like his face was glued shut.

Right. Surgery. Drugs. Lots of drugs.

He tried to speak but only succeeded in making an inarticulate noise.

"Mmphn."

"You okay?"

Wilson's tone shifted. Cautious but not alarmed. But quickly escalating to alarm if he wasn't mollified.

House yelled commands at his body. Slowly, his tongue began to obey. Very slowly. Who'd done his anesthesia, Kevorkian?

"Whuzza…mean…howmuch…n-nesthsia?"

The words sounded jumbled even to his ears.

"What?"

He could sense Wilson shifting, but his eyes remained stubbornly shut. He wanted to pry them open with his hands, but for that to happen, his hands would have to be obeying him. He could move a few fingers—he thought he could, he wasn't totally sure about that—but lifting an arm was impossible.

Wilson should really work on that telepathy trick.

Slowly still but steadily his tongue became looser. His eyelids were starting to crack, too. He could make out dim light and something that might be a form.

"Drugs," he managed to say. "Whatthehell? Too much."

Wilson shifted again. House recognized relaxation.

"You were in pain when you woke up earlier," Wilson explained.

"Don'…remember…that," House mumbled.

What he did remember was so vague it might have been a dream.

"Any pain now?"

He became aware of Wilson's hands on his arm and he forced his head to loll to the right. His eyelids would flutter but refused to stay open.

"No," he answered thickly. "Nothing…can't feel."

"The biopsy was negative," Wilson relayed.

A light squeeze of his arm. Wilson was excited because of the biopsy result. Now he remembered.

"And the surgery went very well."

Yes, Wilson was excited and happy and calm and relaxed.

House tried to make his lips form a smile.

"Great."

He moved the fingers of his right hand, trying to get Wilson's attention.

"Hey…wake me up."

"You need to rest," Wilson countered.

Conservative Wilson. Always conservative.

"No," House responded. "Thought of something…but…I can't…" He sighed impatiently. "C'mon…wake me up."

"It can wait," Wilson said.

House made an annoyed noise. A displeased toddler.

"I'm awake," he said heavily, "can think…just can't move."

"There's a reason for that," Wilson said sardonically. He gently squeezed House's arm and removed his hands. "Be quiet and you'll go back to sleep."

House grunted unhappily and shifted everything that would respond to him: fingers and toes mostly.

"Come back," he mumbled.

Wilson's hands reappeared, settling lightly on his arm. House relaxed.

"What time is it?" he asked, his tongue sticking on the words.

"Time for you to sleep," Wilson responded.

House groaned heavily and shifted again to indicate his displeasure with the answer.

Wilson got the message. "Almost seven."

"'S late," House said. "You eat?"

Wilson laughed lightly. "I'm going to."

House shifted. "You better," he mumbled. "Skipped lunch…need to eat."

He could sense Wilson hesitating, deflecting.

"I was nervous," Wilson answered. "You know I can't eat when I'm nervous."

"Should eat," House slurred. "Don' need two of me."

"I'll get something when you go to sleep," Wilson said.

House sniffed. "'S not fair."

"That's life," Wilson replied.

"Jimmy…" House whined.

"Okay, okay," Wilson relented, his voice smiling, laughing. "Tell me what you're thinking about so you can go back to sleep and I can get dinner."

House gathered his thoughts, which took an effort since they were beginning to float away. Suddenly they'd become very slippery, too.

"Stem cells," he began. "With the…ah…nano thingies."

House sensed Wilson grow serious. Good. He was serious and wanted to be taken seriously. Even if he couldn't keep his eyes open.

"That hasn't been tested on humans yet."

"Pigs," House mumbled.

House could hear the sarcasm drift onto Wilson's face, just from the quick, soft way he breathed in to speak.

"Just because I tell you you're a pig doesn't mean you're really a pig," Wilson countered.

"It'll work."

"And the nerves might keep regenerating on their own," Wilson pointed out.

"But not…" the word fled for a moment "…muscles."

Wilson was silent. Thinking. Weighing his options. House felt himself becoming heavier.

Finally, Wilson's hands squeezed lightly again.

"I'll review the literature and talk to Cuddy," he said. "You sleep. We'll talk about it when you wake up again."

House grunted softly, satisfied with the answer, knowing also that he had little choice with the way the drugs were tugging at his consciousness. He didn't remember waking up in pain. But he didn't remember being prepped for surgery either. He told himself to remember to ask Wilson later why he didn't remember being prepped. But now…now he was going to say…he was going to say…oh, right.

"Go eat a pig," he mumbled, sinking, sinking.

Wilson sniffed. "Hilarious."

House's mouth pulled up slightly, he mumbled something incoherent, and then he was gone.

Wilson sat quietly, one thumb stroking House's forearm, for a very long time.


	7. Home

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

* * *

**Home**

Wilson sat on the couch, comfortable in his McGill alumni t-shirt and sweatpants after his second long full day back at work, chewing handfuls of peanuts and doing his best to watch the evening news despite the loud noises coming from the bathroom. They really should move into a bigger apartment, he reflected. Maybe a small house. But every time he got married, he moved into a house. Houses represented failure more than anything else. They'd talked it over one night and decided that neither of them did very well once something was "official." That didn't preclude moving to a bigger apartment though, Wilson concluded.

The news was almost over by the time the noises finally stopped and Wilson heard the door open.

"Cuddy was less dramatic when she had her kid," Wilson commented as House dropped down next to him on the couch.

House stretched both legs out on the coffee table and let his head dangle from the back of the couch, breathing heavily and shaking a little.

"Cuddy's kid was smaller," he countered breathlessly.

"What did you eat?" Wilson asked around half-chewed peanuts, "An extra-large pizza? An entire cow?"

"Half a sandwich," House returned sullenly. He put a hand on his abdomen and sat forward. "Oww," he whined. "You and Cuddy didn't have to use a full tank on me."

"Your anesthesia was normal, House, I keep telling you that," Wilson returned. "_You _didn't have to wait two weeks for an MRI. Morphine put your gut to sleep, not the anesthesia."

House just grunted, rubbing his bowel.

Suddenly Wilson made a horrified face. "Oh. No. _House!_"

House shook with silent laughter.

Wilson pulled his shirt collar up to his nose. "I put new air freshener in there yesterday. _House!_"

House hugged his gut, trying not to hurt himself. "I s-shouldn't be the o-only one to s-suffer," he choked out between spasms of laughter.

Wilson fairly leapt from the couch. House banged his fist against the cushion at Wilson's "oh"s and "no"s and "_House!_"s and the sound of Mountain Forest Fresh hissing from an aerosol can.

Wilson pointedly sprayed House before returning the can to the bathroom.

"Hey," House protested, feeble with laughter.

"Bad," Wilson said when he returned. "Bad House. Bad."

House sighed in the aftermath of the fit. He took a deep breath as Wilson settled in next to him. "Mmm, chemical fresh."

Wilson picked up his beer and took a swig. "If there's one thing I miss about women," he began, "it's that they don't revel in their own offal."

When House turned his head to make a rebuttal, Wilson belched copiously in his face. House shoved him, laughing in spite of himself.

They calmed down and began making rude comments about the Wheel of Fortune contestants.

House got up for a glass of water when the show went to the commercial. Wilson watched his gait (and his ass) as he walked to the kitchen. Better today than it had been yesterday. He could tell by the way House depended on the cane that he was sore, but he didn't see the kind of pain only narcotics could touch in the limp. Not today. Not yesterday. Not even the first time House had done a lap around the floor after surgery. The worry that had built up in him all day at work flattened out to calm.

"Earth to Jimmy."

Wilson blinked. His gaze had been fixed blankly on the space House had last occupied before he'd disappeared into the kitchen. Now House was back in that space.

"What are you staring at?"

_Your crotch_, Wilson realized in the same moment House began to hula carefully.

Wilson chuckled with appreciation. "Turn around," he commanded.

House obliged, wiggling his ass as he turned.

"Gotta fill those jeans out," Wilson commented, patting the couch cushion next to him. "I'm gonna cut myself on that bony ass of yours."

"Well, if you and Cuddy hadn't—"

"House," Wilson warned.

House rolled his eyes and plopped back down. Wilson put a hand on House's left leg. House responded by hooking Wilson's neck with his arm and pulling him into a half-headlock to give him a nuggie. Wilson took the opportunity to tickle House's ribs until House let him go, laughing helplessly. Wilson leaned in and kissed House's neck lightly. He pulled back to his own space before House could reciprocate. Dinner first.

"What's for dinner?" Wilson asked.

"That can't be it," House replied, gesturing toward the television, "it's a Household Item, not a Phrase."

"Not the game," Wilson said with an eye roll, nudging House in the ribs again.

House shoved him in return. "I dunno."

"Soup?"

House groaned. "I've got soup dribbling out of my ears. I'm sick of soup."

"So am I," Wilson said. _But you're still having trouble with food and I want to get laid tonight, so it has to be something light_. "Stew?"

House grunted.

"With big chunks of meat and potatoes?" Wilson added.

House still had a grumpy face on. "Won't that take a long time?" he complained. "Can't we just order a pizza?"

"About an hour," Wilson replied. "And pizza would interfere with my master plan for the evening."

House's eyebrow jumped. "What master plan is that?"

"Maybe you'll find out," Wilson answered coyly, "and maybe you won't."

House kept his eyes firmly trained on Wilson's. "I think stew would be delicious."

Wilson smiled. "Stew it is."

He finished his beer and got up.

"You don't miss tits?" House called as Wilson left the room.

"Yeah, I miss tits," Wilson called back amid the clatter of cabinets. "I was thinking of getting you implants for your birthday."

"Bad idea," House returned. "I'd never leave the house if you did. And I definitely wouldn't share."

"Spoil sport."

House smiled and turned his attention back to Wheel of Fortune. Wilson was great to have around. He'd missed Wilson today and yesterday, as much as he'd enjoyed having the apartment to himself for once. What he needed was to go back to work. But he recognized that he didn't have the strength yet. Crashing after PT, then another crash he just couldn't fight off in the early afternoon. Then the late afternoon crash. And his sluggish digestive system. The strange thing was that his leg hardly bothered him at all. His leg…

"Hey," House called, getting to his feet, "did Cuddy hear back from that guy?" He crossed the living room quickly. "The pig guy," he clarified.

Wilson looked up from the carrot he was chopping. "Yeah," he answered. "He won't do it. Says it's not ready for human testing yet."

"Duh," House returned, rolling his eyes and leaning on the door frame. "Did she tell him I don't care if it's ready?"

"Yes," Wilson replied slowly. He stopped chopping and turned to House. "Do you really think he's going to say yes? He wouldn't be able to get funding to go to the bathroom, much less work with stem cells again if this got out. He has no incentive."

House made a disappointed, disagreeing face.

"But that isn't what's important," Wilson continued, leaning on the counter now in an exact mirror of House's posture. "If they're still regenerating spontaneously…" he trailed off into a question and waited for House to answer.

House was still displeased. He took his time answering, eyes on a spot on the floor that wasn't in Wilson's direction.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I think they are." Unconsciously, his hand filled in the hollow crescent. "The…tingling…is different. In new places." He glanced at Wilson. "Annoying as hell."

Wilson studied him. "But no more burning."

House shook his head slightly. "No. Every other kind of neurasthesia, but no burning."

Wilson nodded. The surgeon had found four neuromas instead of two, and the pathology report indicated that the two that didn't show up on the MRI were old. How old, the pathologist couldn't tell, but he'd concluded—and he knew House had concluded too—that they'd been responsible for a lot of his bad days over the past…year? years? It was impossible to tell. But the important thing was that House was doing much better now. Wilson hadn't asked about how much Vicodin House was taking—it hadn't even been a week since his surgery and Wilson knew the incision site was still sore—but he sensed that it wasn't very much. His estimate was thirty to forty milligrams per day—and that was _with _the rigors of daily physical therapy. The most important thing, though, was that House seemed happier overall than he'd been in two or three months. Except for the slow-to-wake digestive system, he reminded himself.

"Good," Wilson replied simply and smiled. He returned to the carrot.

House lingered in the doorway. "Get that guy's number from Cuddy, will you?"

Wilson stopped chopping again and thought for a long moment. He searched House's eyes. House really wanted this. House believed in this. He didn't just want to cause trouble—though he would enjoy any trouble he caused, Wilson knew—he really did believe it would work.

"Okay," he agreed. "Tomorrow. Now get out of here or we'll never get to bed tonight."

House's eyebrow shot up. "As master wishes." He bowed slightly and returned to the living room to watch Jeopardy.


	8. Need

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

I don't know if this scene works or not. Please let me know. For reference, it takes place one night and one day after the scene in the last chapter.

* * *

**Need**

For the second night in a row, a noise woke Wilson out of an exhausted sleep. Last night on his mind—_morphine cravings, God, House, always at night_—he got up quickly and steeled himself for a confrontation.

The noise came again as he opened the bedroom door: loud, the sound of metal hitting metal.

"House," Wilson called, hurrying toward the living room.

House said nothing. The noise came again.

Wilson skidded to a stop, nearly tripping over House, who was seated on the floor with the metal box and a hammer. The front of the box was dented in a few places. House hit it again, hard, not interested in Wilson at all.

"Stop!" Wilson commanded.

"You changed the combination," House said in a quick, high voice that didn't belong to him. He was panting and shaking.

"What did you expect me to do?" Wilson asked, not sure if he should try to take the hammer from House or kick the box out of his reach. This was not his House. This House would hurt anyone who got in his way right now. So Wilson stood a few feet from him, hoping to talk him down.

"I trusted you," House said in his most betrayed, nasty tone.

He slammed the hammer down on the lock again, but his aim wasn't very good. Wilson could see dents in the wood flooring.

_I trusted you, too,_ Wilson thought bitterly, though he knew better than to think that. House was vulnerable right now; he didn't know what he was saying; he didn't mean it. Two days—three days now—since he'd been weaned off of the methodone that was supposed to bring him down from morphine dependence slowly; he was over the physical withdrawal. Now, according to the rehab counselor, the real battle began: getting over the worst of the psychological dependence. It wasn't going that well so far.

"I had to do it," Wilson said calmly. "You know I had to. You're okay. You can get through this."

With an inarticulate cry of frustration, House brought the hammer down again—and again and again until Wilson grabbed his arm.

"No, dammit, no," House spat, struggling against him.

Wilson tried to hold him, but not wanting to hurt him either, let House push him away.

House stared wildly at him, hammer drawn back to strike the box again, panting heavily.

"It's okay," Wilson said soothingly, "you can beat it. You don't need it. You're stronger than this."

"You have _no idea_," House growled, and spread his left hand out on the floor. Intent flashed clearly, quickly in his eyes: _if you won't let me have it, I'll _make _you let me have it_.

Wilson tackled him before he knew what he was doing. House hit the floor with a grunt, dropping the hammer in surprise, and immediately tried to push Wilson off of him. Calmly, methodically, Wilson pinned House's shoulders to the floor with his knees and held House's wrists, sitting lightly on his stomach. House cursed and spat and struggled, but he was still weak from surgery and two weeks in bed before that. Wilson out-weighed him by at least thirty pounds, too, they both knew, but House continued to fight.

"Goddamn you, goddamn you," House snarled, his voice cracking.

"I'm not going to let you hurt yourself," Wilson said evenly.

"It's my body," House protested, writhing wildly beneath Wilson. "You have _no right_."

Wilson grunted as House kneed him square in the back, but found that he was able to resist House's knee and still keep him pinned. House simply wasn't in any shape to fight.

"You told me last night when I found you not to let you do it again," Wilson reminded him.

Calm, even tone. Hold him still without hurting him. The rehab counselor knew his stuff, Wilson realized. He'd been horrified at the prospect of having to physically restrain House when the counselor had talked to him alone yesterday, but he was more horrified at the way he'd found House last night: sprawled out on the sofa, high on a big dose of morphine but still sane enough to beg Wilson not to let him give in to the cravings again. Now House was snarling and snapping underneath him; cursing, begging, threatening—doing anything he could to get a hit. Hard as it was to have to restrain him, Wilson found this so much easier than handling the docile, high House of last night.

"I don't love you, I never loved you, _let go of me_!" House spat at the end of a long tirade.

The knee House had been driving into Wilson's back vanished and Wilson sensed a change of tactic just before he saw it in House's eyes.

"Ow," House cried, suddenly limp, "you hurt—agh—my leg." He banged his head against the floor and tried to grab one of Wilson's wrists for comfort. "My leg—oww—get off—really—"

Wilson held him carefully, allowing him some movement while still keeping him pinned. He didn't sense any real pain in House's body—he knew that tension better than anyone else—and he could see the deceit in House's eyes.

"It hurts," House whined, pouring all he pain he could into his voice. "Jimmy. Please." He looked up at Wilson with wet eyes.

"If it hurts, you can take a Vicodin," Wilson said stolidly.

"No, no, no." House shook his head frantically back and forth like a child throwing a tantrum. "That's not enough. It really hurts." He stopped shaking his head and fixed tearful eyes on Wilson again. "Please. Jimmy. Please. You're hurting me."

"No, I'm not," Wilson said calmly. He knew he wasn't. His muscles strained with the effort of keeping his full weight off of House.

House let his head hit the floor again and beseeched the ceiling. "I need it."

"You don't," Wilson countered softly.

"You have no idea!" House snarled through his teeth. He tried to push Wilson off again, but this effort was considerably weaker than the last.

"Tell me," Wilson said. "Then I'll know."

"You can't know," House said quietly to the ceiling.

"All right, I can't," Wilson conceded. "But that doesn't mean you can't try to tell me."

House licked his lips and turned his head sideways. For a moment, Wilson thought he actually might try to put his experience into words. Instead he groaned heavily.

"Gonna puke," he said thickly. "Get off."

"You're fine, House," Wilson said, not moving at all. "Even if you make yourself sick. You're still fine."

House closed his eyes in extreme frustration and pain. Then he tried to shake Wilson off again.

"Goddammit, get off me!" he shouted.

Wilson held him down firmly. "I will when you stop acting like this."

House shouted another curse and struggled weakly, but he was too tired to get his knee up to Wilson's back again, much less lift Wilson off of his upper body.

He threw his head back, eyes closed, and began sobbing soundlessly.

Wilson felt him shaking with internal pain, frustration, and need, and watched tears track down his temples and into his hair. For a few long moments he kept House pinned to the floor.

Finally, without a word, he let House's wrists go and took his knees off of House's shoulders. When House remained still, Wilson got up, gathered the box and hammer, and went to the kitchen. The least he could do was let House lick his wounds in private.

Keeping his mind blank, Wilson pried the box open with the back of the hammer. House had nearly gotten it open. He removed the two vials of morphine—somehow still intact when the compazine vial had shattered—and dropped them in a plastic bag. The bag he placed in the sink and with one quick blow smashed the glass. He made an opening large enough to let the liquid run out but too small to let any glass fragments escape. Water from the tap washed the morphine down the sink. Assured that no narcotic was left, Wilson sealed the bag and tossed it in the trash.

He resolved that if House's pain ever became bad enough that he needed morphine again, they would simply have to go to the hospital to get it. And while they were there, they'd get any tests done so that he wouldn't end up shooting the stuff for two weeks first. Shooting it because he, Wilson, had given it to him to shoot. Wilson cursed himself for letting that happen in the first place. For enabling dependence. He stared at the counter top for a long time, angry at himself for causing House pain, everything inside him throbbing with the knowledge that he let this happen.

Eventually, Wilson let himself up from the psychological pin and put the hammer away. He re-checked the box for any remaining narcotics and decided to leave it in the kitchen for the time being. Drained mentally and physically, he wanted to curl up with House and make everything go away for a few hours. Tomorrow, they would have the same talk they had yesterday morning about how to deal with the cravings. But not right now. He couldn't do it right now.

Wilson poured himself some water to allow House more time to pull himself together and hoped that House would be able to go back to work in the next day or two. Having something to do would help. House had an early PT session in the morning and a rehab session shortly after it, so he'd be around until noon at least. Maybe he'd be content to sit in Wilson's office all day and play his video games. Wilson worried about leaving him alone now, even though he'd been incredibly honest about his morphine use last night and had actually asked Wilson to accompany him to his drug rehab session. The trust he'd displayed was immense. Wilson hoped he wouldn't take it all back now. He hoped too that House wouldn't really hurt himself to get a hit from some gullible ER doc. Briefly, he considered hiding the hammer, but he knew that if House was going to hurt himself, he'd find some way to do it no matter how many dangerous tools were hidden. He added that topic to the list of Things We Need to Talk About Tomorrow Morning.

Tired, aching, Wilson filled another glass with water and went to sit on the couch, purposefully not looking at House as he passed. House had turned on to his side at some point, facing away from the room and Wilson. If Wilson didn't know him so well, he'd think House was asleep.

"I'm sorry I had to do that," Wilson said after a while.

The lump that was House breathed in more deeply and spoke to the wall he was facing. "Don't apologize," he said hoarsely. "I asked you to do it."

Wilson looked down at his bare feet. "Yeah."

Silence passed between them. House kept staring at the wall; Wilson kept staring at his feet.

Finally, Wilson spoke again. "The floor isn't very comfortable."

"No," the lump agreed.

Wilson drew a line in the condensation on the glass. "If I go back to bed, the sheets will be cold," he said, as though he were talking to himself. "I hate cold sheets."

"You do."

But the lump didn't move.

Concluding that House would come to bed if and when he wanted to come to bed and not a moment before, Wilson got to his feet.

"Gonna piss first," he announced.

The lump was silent.

Wilson took his time in the bathroom, but the bed was empty when he climbed in. He closed his eyes and tried not to think.

Later—how much later, he wasn't sure, but it didn't feel like very much later—he heard House enter the room and felt the mattress dip. Once House was settled in, Wilson reached out tentatively, half-expecting a rebuff. Instead, House's hand came up to take Wilson's and gently tugged. Wilson slid closer and House put an arm across his chest, rolling on to his side. Sighing with contentment, Wilson let House pull him close. The scratch of stubble against his neck, the soft flutter of House's breathing, the arm holding him in place—Wilson's mind cleared for sleep.

Tomorrow they would talk. Tomorrow.


	9. Support

Disclaimer, etc. in chapter 1.

This chapter was surprisingly hard to write. It's not as unified as I'd like it to be, but I couldn't push it any more. To clarify, this chapter takes place the morning after the "Need" chapter.

* * *

**Support**

Wilson's alarm shook House out of a solid sleep. The warm, heavy body he was curled up against reached out and squashed the squawking alarm, then sighed back into place. Relaxed. Breathing deeply. Still asleep, House realized.

But no part of House was asleep. Because, he recalled with some chagrin, Wilson had tackled him to prevent him from getting that damned box open. He really didn't think Wilson had it in him; then again, he'd never expected to be smashing that box with a hammer at 2 a.m. either. Need that bad didn't hit him often. That he had no control over what he'd done…he didn't relish having to talk it out with his counselor later today, but he knew he needed to. He was just happy he wouldn't have to talk it out with Wilson, since Wilson finally understood how bad the need was.

In fact, his current state of hyper-wakefulness was entirely Wilson's fault. No morphine, no methadone, last night's Vicodin wearing off: he felt like himself for the first time in a month. Certain parts of him were vengefully back to normal. Well, House smirked. Wilson would just have to pay for letting him return to normal. More specifically, the soft flesh pressing against his groin would have to pay.

House grinned devilishly and set his hands in motion.

* * *

"C'mon," House whined from the passenger's seat, "we can stop somewhere real quick. I'm starving."

"We're going to be late already," Wilson countered, frowning at the traffic in front of him. "You can get something from the cafeteria."

House sighed dramatically. "The line will be just as long there and I'll end up with food poisoning." He nodded toward the next block. "Anton's is right there," he said. "You love their bagels."

"But I hate being late more than I love bagels," Wilson grumbled.

House turned to face him. "Why are you grumpy?" he asked. "_No one_ should be grumpy after sex like that."

Wilson grimaced at the red light that had stopped the car in front of them. He glanced at House. "When you whispered 'quickie' in my ear, I thought you meant fifteen minutes at most."

House grinned wickedly. "I thought you'd last long enough to call it a quickie," he said. "That was more like a light-speed-ie."

Wilson blushed and looked out of his window. "Yeah, well, I didn't exactly expect you to wake me up like that," he mumbled.

House's grin widened. "You should hear the noise you make when you come in your sleep. I didn't think I could get any harder—"

"_House_."

"There's my puritan," House said, reaching over to pat Wilson's leg. "I thought the tiger you turned into had eaten him all up."

Wilson's pink cheeks flared dark red.

House kept grinning and stretched out triumphantly in the passenger's seat. "Nothing beats morning sex," he said. "Except the shower sex that comes after it when you decide you don't like having cum on your stomach." He cocked his head. "Then there's noon sex…"

Wilson groaned. "I'll be walking funny all day as it is," he complained.

House relished Wilson's performance of incorruptibility. His days would be so much more boring without it.

"Yep," he said, stretching again, "everyone's gonna know who's got cooties today."

Wilson groaned again—not only at House, but also because they were caught behind another red light.

House's attention shifted to the restaurant on the block. "There's almost no one in line," he pointed out. "I can jump out and—"

"There are five people in line," Wilson countered, "and there's always a ten minute wait at least."

House harrumphed. "Next time you finish early, I'll make you make me breakfast instead of giving you the best head of your life."

"The cafeteria isn't going anywhere," Wilson pointed out, still flushed at House's insistence on recalling every detail of every sex act. Maybe House wasn't affected by all that talk, but… Wilson shifted uncomfortably in the driver's seat.

"But we're not going to the cafeteria and I'm hungry _now_," House whined.

Right, Wilson recalled, House had moved on to hunger. Vicodin made it easier for him than he realized.

House, oblivious to Wilson's discomfort, craned his neck to look down the street.

"Ooo, Mickie-Dee's. Nothing's faster than that." He collapsed dramatically against the seat, hand on his heart. "I can taste the Big Breakfast now. Pancakes, sausage, eggs—"

"Two days of LDL in one meal," Wilson said with disgust. He exaggerated a shudder.

"You can get coffee," House suggested. "Mr. Grumpy Pants needs his coffee."

"What I need is Moses to part the Red Sea," Wilson grumbled, gesturing toward the cars in front of them. "I can do without the lard-based coffee."

House plucked at his t-shirt. "Come on, I'm a skeleton," he coaxed, "it's not going to hurt me."

"Might make _me_ vomit, though." Wilson _was_ beginning to turn green, but not because of anything House would or would not eat.

House sniffed. "Food snob."

They pulled two blocks closer to the hospital before another light stopped them. McDonald's occupied the next block, House noted as his mouth filled with saliva. He pawed at the window and whined like a puppy, showing Wilson his most inconsolable face.

Wilson couldn't help it: he started chuckling. "All right, all right," he capitulated with a laugh. "I'll buy you a McHeartAttack."

House kept his mournful expression. "Can I have a McTripleBypass too?" he asked pathetically.

Wilson composed himself so he could be properly condescending.

"Of course you can."

* * *

Wilson paused at the administrative assistant's desk after grand rounds to check his calendar for the rest of the day. Except for an hour blocked out for the meeting with House's rehab counselor and time for lunch, he was booked solid. The assistant offered him the patient files for his afternoon appointments, scattered memos, and his mail. He thanked her and headed toward his office to make the most of the fifteen minute break between the rounds he'd just finished and the budget meeting that would start soon.

Disturbed by the lack of improvement in one of his patients, he didn't notice House's presence until he smelled the sweaty musk he'd become so accustomed to.

"Hey," he said without looking up from a memo he was scanning. He flipped on the lights.

Wilson glanced at the long form stretched out on his couch when House didn't answer. Ice pack wedged between his leg and the couch, pillow covering his face, an arm draped over his stomach. It hadn't been a good session.

House only came to his office after PT when he wanted to be secluded but not alone. Wilson didn't know where he went when he wanted to be both secluded and alone. Knowing House would only talk when he wanted to talk, Wilson went around his desk and settled into the chair to review the material for the budget meeting. Just because House didn't want to be alone didn't mean he wanted attention.

Proposal to expand nuclear medicine's budget by… Wilson scented something he encountered so often that he had trouble placing it at first. His eyes traveled over House and—there. Yellow-brown splatter patterns on his grey sweat pants and shirt. Wilson wrinkled his nose.

"They couldn't give you scrubs to change into?" Wilson asked.

"And deprive me of my badge of courage?" House replied in a gruff voice.

He belched and moaned, carefully rubbing his stomach.

Wilson jumped from his chair. "Whoa, whoa, not on the carpet," he said, grabbing a trash can and plunking it down next to the couch.

House was silent. Wilson cocked his head and peeled the pillow off of House's face.

"Okay?" he asked.

House closed his eyes and swallowed delicately. "Will be when the rest of it comes up," he answered.

"Eat too much?" Wilson questioned.

"Yeah," House breathed. "You were right about the McBreakfast." His face squished together. "Thanks."

"Want something?"

House grimaced. "I'll be fine if I can just puke again."

Wilson placed a hand on House's sweat-stiffened hair. "Your meeting's in an hour," he said. "I've got a meeting before that. Tell you what: I'll get a suppository and some ginger ale. Can't hurt."

He scanned House's face for any trace of reply. Nothing there but the unhappy tension of nausea. He wrinkled his nose again.

"And a pair of scrubs," he added, eyes straying to House's clothes.

He raked his fingers slowly through House's hair. House assented by not dissenting. Wilson smiled slightly and placed the pillow on House's face again.

"Kill the lights," House mumbled as Wilson went toward the door.

Wilson flipped the lights off and paused at the door. "Try to hit the trash can."

House just grunted miserably.

* * *

After Wilson's budget meeting, they met up outside the counselor's office.

"You look better," Wilson said as he settled into the chair next to House.

House, wearing the scrubs Wilson had left for him, nodded. "Feel better," he said, nervously tapping his cane on the floor. He glanced at Wilson. "Thanks."

Wilson allowed himself a quick brush of House's arm: _you're welcome_.

House flashed Wilson the small, secret smile only Wilson got to see, and rubbed his stomach. "Kinda hungry, actually."

Wilson snorted a laugh, shaking his head.

House still smiled. "What?" he asked innocently.

"Only you," Wilson replied, smiling back.

He took House's hand briefly, squeezing it, feeling the rough skin. He respected House's need to keep up his reputation of meanness and inapproachability. Everyone knew, but House liked to control how much they knew and had thus deemed that public physical contact at work be kept to a minimum. As if on cue, House's smile disappeared and he settled back into his gruff misanthropist disguise.

Wilson spoke to him in a low voice. "I was thinking the morphine shouldn't be replaced," he said. "Depending on what Hofstadter says, of course," Wilson qualified, "but if it gets that bad, we should come here anyway."

House eyed the floor, tapping his cane. He took several long seconds to consider the proposal. Finally, his head tipped forward in the tiniest of nods.

"That's probably a good idea."

They waited in silence until the counselor opened his door.

"Doctor House," he said.

House tapped the cane one last time and got to his feet. Wilson stayed seated.

House took a few steps toward the door before he realized Wilson wasn't with him. He stopped, glanced quickly at the counselor, then down at the floor. Thinking. Deciding.

Finally, eyes still on the floor, he spoke. "You should come too."

Not needing to be told twice, Wilson followed him into the counselor's office.

Once inside, Wilson sat quietly near House while Hofstadter asked a series of questions House liked to parody at night. House kept his attention on the floor and spoke quietly—always a sign that he was battling emotions that made him uncomfortable. Occasionally, he glanced to Wilson for confirmation of the veracity of his statements. Wilson had a small, warm smile and a nod ready at all times.

To Wilson's surprise, the counselor questioned him about the incident, too. He found himself flailing, uncertain, and looking to House for confirmation the way House looked to him.

Hofstadter looked from House to Wilson. "Did this occurrence create any tension between you that you haven't resolved?"

Wilson looked to House, who was smiling stupidly like he was, and said, "No…I think we took care of that."

House eyed him devilishly for half a second—just long enough to make Wilson's cheeks and groin tingle.

Hofstadter pronounced their relationship healthy, functional, and supportive, and asked to speak to House alone.

Wilson obeyed, but not before exchanging a puzzled look with House. Functional? Healthy? Supportive? He shrugged slightly and left them alone.

Outside, Wilson sat quietly and relished not having to think for a few minutes. His patients, House's stomach, leg, addiction—all of his concerns could wait until later. Right now, he was busy processing Hofstadter's pronouncement.

Functional? Him? House? He and House together? Functional? He shook his head slowly, smiling a little.

He had to admit that he hadn't fallen into the pattern of working late or spending time with, well, House to avoid relationship problems he didn't want to deal with. They fought. Sure. He'd taken advantage of Cuddy's hospitality and spare room, or the couch in his office from time to time. But at the end of the day, he wanted to go home, and home was where House was. He smiled a little more.

But at the same time, the thought that this was as good as it could get tumbled around in the pit of his stomach. Maybe being pronounced healthy and functional would end the healthy, functional part of their relationship. Now that he was conscious of how good the relationship was… He sighed and sent up a prayer that he wouldn't screw it up.

After a few more minutes which Wilson spent spiraling between happiness and anxiety, House emerged with an off-color joke.

"The nice man says you aren't supposed to touch me in the bad place anymore."

Wilson rolled his eyes and stood to shake Hofstadter's hand.

"Any questions, Dr. Wilson?" Hofstadter asked.

Wrinkles appeared on Wilson's forehead. "Did I do the right thing?" he asked in a low tone.

House grabbed Wilson's arm impatiently, rolling his eyes. "You always do the right thing, Jimmy, that's why everyone loves you." House tugged. "Come on. I'm starving."

Hofstadter smiled mildly. "You did," he answered.

"Thanks," Wilson got out before House pulled him away. Hofstadter smiled mildly again and returned to his office.

"Hey," Wilson complained as House jerked him down the hall. He shook House's hand off but fell in step next to him. "Unnecessary."

"I'm _hungry_," House countered. "It's _lunch time_. Never stand between a man and his food."

Wilson rolled his eyes again. "Thanks for the warning," he griped. "Only about fifteen years too late."

"See?" House said. "_That's _why we're so functional."

"Exactly," Wilson answered. "I always support your very healthy decisions."

House snapped his fingers and pointed at Wilson. "He's got it."

They stopped at the elevator. The button was already lit up, but House pressed it again with his cane for good measure.

"Speaking of your very healthy decisions," Wilson began.

The elevator's arrival interrupted him. House held up his cane to let everyone know it was _his _push of the button that summoned the machine.

"Do I have a mess in my office?" Wilson asked once they'd crowded in with the rest of the staff members going to lunch.

House screwed up his face. "Yeah. We need to talk about that."

Wilson groaned as the elevator doors slid shut.


	10. Rage

Disclaimer in chapter 1.

This chapter is set one night and one day after the preceding chapter.

* * *

**Rage**

When Wilson startled awake to light flooding the cracked bedroom door the next night, he reminded himself that he'd expected this to happen. House slept poorly. He knew that, he told himself as he reluctantly pushed the covers back and sat up. Consequently, House often woke up and since he was incapable of sitting still, he snuck out to read or watch television or play a video game. Or to pace. Wilson could hear House pacing rapidly. House probably didn't need any help right now. He knew that too, he said to the part of his brain that reminded him of these things as he got to his feet.

Squinting in the lamp light coming down the hall, Wilson watched House do two laps before House noticed him.

Just as quickly as House glanced up to confirm Wilson's presence, he glanced down again. "Go back to sleep," he barked.

Edgy. Jittery. Wilson had expected that, too.

He leaned against the hallway wall. "Anything I can do?"

House's lip curled as he rounded the couch. "Didn't you get that from 'go back to sleep'?" he sneered, baring down on Wilson.

House turned and Wilson sighed. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Wilson tried to come up with something to say. House continued to pace at an alarming rate around the sofa, ignoring Wilson.

After a few minutes of watching House wear down the wood floor, Wilson spoke.

"Do you think rehab would help?"

"So not the time to ask," House snarled, "seeing as I really want to hit someone right now." He emphasized his point with a stomp combination of his cane and bad leg.

Wilson's eyes tracked him pensively. "Their night support staff can do a better job than I can," he pointed out.

House barked a humorless laugh. "That's right, keep trying me." Raw anger flashed in his eyes as he rounded the couch again.

Wilson merely watched him pace, hands shoved into his pajama pants pockets. From House's stride, he could tell that the leg wasn't bothering him. Of course, he'd known as soon as he'd become fully awake why House was doing laps at a NASCAR pace. No one got away from morphine that easily.

"Did you smoke?" Wilson asked casually.

"Didn't work," House answered, this time not as aggressively. His eyes flickered to Wilson's for a half second. "Chain-smoking might but I don't want to be sick anymore."

Wilson noticed the jitter in his left hand as he turned the couch again. This craving had him by the bones.

"So you're going to out-run it?" Wilson asked.

House stopped, swaying as his motion caught up to him after the abrupt halt.

"You got a better idea?" he shouted.

Wilson could see him shaking, his chest and face turning red.

House stepped forward aggressively. "Why are you pushing me?"

Wilson held House's outraged gaze steadily. "Because rehab might be better for you this time," he said in a soft tone.

House ground his teeth, ready to lunge at Wilson, then resumed his pacing.

"Trying to get rid of me?" he asked—traces of paranoia, self-effacing humor, and anger. His normal tone, more or less.

"Yeah, that's it," Wilson snorted.

House's mouth worked back and forth, opening and shutting before he spoke.

"I've gone through all the steps," he growled. "Talking isn't going to help me. I already know I need to work through the damned craving." His eyes flashed at Wilson again. "That's what I'm doing." He looked down. "I don't need an audience," he added.

Wilson stared at the roving form. The scarecrow still fifteen pounds underweight. The addict.

"I find it difficult to sleep when you're like this," he said calmly. He wasn't putting his feelings into these words. He wasn't trying to threaten House, not in any way.

"You must never sleep," House fired back

Wilson sniffed a laugh. Such a typical reply from House. If House could be himself, he'd be able to get through this one.

Wilson turned back toward the bedroom. He knew he couldn't do anything to help. Even being present wasn't helpful.

"You know where I'll be," he called over his shoulder.

The only response he received was the rapid step-thump of House's pacing.

In the morning, Wilson found him asleep on the couch. He slept through Wilson's entire morning routine—even through Wilson's macadamia nut pancake breakfast.

Believing that House might actually know the best way to heal himself for once, Wilson locked the door quietly and headed for work.


	11. Wilson's Disease

Disclaimer in chapter 1.

This chapter is set 1. directly after the preceding one, 2. one day after the surgery referred to in earlier chapters, and 3. some two years prior to the story's present time (which is, say, still one year or so after mid-season 3). I don't know why I use the 'because' fragments in this chapter. It arrived in that fashion. If I didn't get the name of the rehab unit right, someone please correct me.

* * *

**Wilson's Dis-ease**

Because last time, House _had_ gone to rehab for morphine dependence—not only to ease through the physical withdrawal but because he had a history.

Wilson yawned and shook his head, trying to dislodge the stream of thoughts distracting him from chart reviews. His morning coffee hadn't kicked in yet, and the charts weren't dispelling the image of House fast asleep on the couch. Still so underweight.

Because last time House had checked into the familiar McDaniel Wing, it was just after a near overdose. Wilson walked in on him then, too, but he hadn't turned and left, disgusted, as he had so many times in the past.

Dwight Lee Grier. Lymphoma. Third round of chemo. Progressing poorly…

Because pills were one thing. Pills House could (and always did) expel himself.

…developed an infection at the cannula site, spiked a fever, brief ICU visit…

But IV morphine courted death. That's what scared him. House shooting up for months and him not knowing about it. And this hadn't even been the first time he'd used morphine on his own for pain control. At home. In a metal box. He'd never known. Not until a chance return to House's apartment amid a chance overdose. How long could it have gone on?

He dropped the pen and let his head fall into waiting palms, staring at his own handwriting. Trapped in memory.

He'd stayed that time and watched House. Paraphernalia on the table. Trickle of dried blood. House had wanted to be caught.

And when House had finally come down after hours of barely acceptable pulse rates and sluggish responsiveness, they'd had a long conversation.

Trapped like a prehistoric mosquito in amber. Dwight Lee Grier was no help at all.

Exasperated but trying to understand, Wilson had asked: "Do you need it?"

House kept his head down, sitting up now for the first time in hours. Pre-dawn's cobalt blue particles peaked through the window.

"I used to."

He spoke quietly. They'd already yelled at each other.

"Not anymore."

Then a long pause. Wilson waited, tired after the protracted scare House had subjected him to and numb with the knowledge that House had been using for months—and that he'd used before. That Wilson had never known, had never picked up on the change. He felt as shaky as House looked, hunched forward on the couch, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

In his office, chart spread out before him, Wilson shivered unconsciously.

House's eyes traveled up to meet Wilson's. Telling so much, asking so much, but expecting so little.

"I can't stop."

Those three words and the forlorn expression flashing across House's haggard face, and without speaking they packed underwear and toiletries, buckled themselves into Wilson's sedan in the early morning grey-blue, and parted at the wing's check-in desk.

Two years ago. More than that. Just before they fell into this thing they were doing now.

At his own office desk, Wilson sighed. Memory hounded him this morning as if he'd done the wrong thing last night by not forcing the issue. But this time, he told himself, House had a support structure at home and he was meeting with a counselor every day. (Wilson reminded himself to call House in a few hours and make sure he was awake and able to get to the hospital.)

He didn't expect House's recovery to be any easier than it was last time. How could he? Recovery was never ever easy.

His lips curled at the chart: maybe he was naïve to think he could handle it. He certainly hadn't handled it last time. House had needed an extra week to get used to fighting the cravings.

Because he'd never actually quit Vicodin in the past—not for real, not for good. The threat of him quitting Vicodin had never been more than a threat. Vicodin he always needed legitimately.

But morphine he wanted. Morphine was a full-blown addiction, not just a physical dependency. Morphine he'd inflict harm for.

Wilson smiled grotesquely at the chart again, recalling the massive bruise House had planted on the jaw of the rehab wing's director after a lengthy shouting match. Wilson smiled because the director had had it coming to him, but the knowledge of how the director had treated House following the punch twisted his mouth into an ugly shape. Even if House had been responsible for exacerbating the situation, the director was the professional and House was the addict: the addict had an excuse for behaving badly.

After House's first venture into rehab during the Tritter escapade and the jail-cell revelation that House had bribed the orderly to slip him Vicodin, Wilson had had to tell Cuddy and she'd had to inform the rehab director. When the orderly admitted that though he'd been offered bribes before, he'd never taken any until House came along, the director was more than a little upset with House. So when House had returned with a morphine addiction and the same old Vicodin dependence, which Wilson and Cuddy agreed House needed to keep, the director was very unhappy—especially after House shook a full bottle of Vicodin in his face within an hour of checking in.

Wilson shook his head, smiling genuinely at that memory. If House only knew how amused Wilson was by his antics sometimes…

But angering the unit's director was stupid. House had known that. And, just like he had with Tritter, House had paid for taunting him. Because Vicodin detox was one thing, and House was relatively accustomed to it. Morphine detox was a different kind of hell altogether.

Morphine detox. One thing Dwight Lee Grier probably didn't have to worry about, the poor bastard.

Wilson read a little further before his mind skipped off to memory again.

He remembering entering the visitation area during the afternoon visiting period on the day House had checked in. Cuddy had visited him during the morning period and reported that he'd been sullen and withdrawn, refusing to look at her. Tearing himself up, clearly acknowledging his fault. Wilson thought he could use a morale booster, if only in the form of someone House could avoid looking at.

When he didn't see House, his first thought was that House was sulking. Wilson had informed the desk that he'd be visiting House; House must know about it.

He was in his room, the orderly said. He wasn't feeling well. But she would tell him again that he had a visitor.

Wilson waited, tapping his foot.

No, he didn't feel well enough to leave his room.

Wilson rolled his eyes. No one felt well twelve hours into detox. But whatever shape he was in, Wilson wanted him to know he had support. Tonight would be very long for him; Wilson needed him to know that despite the willful self-destruction, someone cared about him.

But visitors weren't usually allowed in the rooms and the orderly would have to check with her supervisor.

Wilson waited, thinking viciously that his white coat made him supervisor enough. Almost no sleep the night before, a full day of work, and having to explain the situation to Cuddy this morning: he had no patience left. And yet he waited. Polite Dr. Wilson always waited.

The orderly returned. Oh, of course. Certainly Dr. Wilson could visit Dr. House. Her mistake.

He had seen House sick. House tended to get sick more than most people. His Vicodin habit saw to that. And he'd seen House detox—more than once. But this was something else entirely.

He saw legs first from the doorway: long and carelessly sprawled on beige tile flooring. Then the rest of his friend, curled on his side behind the toilet. Not an uncommon place to find him on day one of detoxing. But his whole body shook this time, and the usual ragged pants that accompanied the bathroom floor stage came too slowly for Wilson's liking. Never mind his total lack of color.

Wilson was just about to say something when House grabbed the toilet seat and pulled himself up faster than Wilson thought he'd be able to. Wilson made a face and turned his head, but he couldn't avoid hearing the strained choking heaves. Or the smell, he noticed, even though someone had tried to blanket it with a strong antiseptic. He considered himself accustomed to smells. Chemo created a rash of horrible stenches. But knowing this was the smell of his friend's protracted suffering broke through the barrier and turned his stomach. He could hear, too, that House wasn't having much luck expelling the poison.

Finally the cough-chokes stopped and he heard House spit. He turned his head: House dropped to the floor and made a half-hearted effort to curl more tightly around his midsection.

"Good to see you too," Wilson said awkwardly.

House didn't respond. He made no indication that he'd heard anything at all.

Expecting recalcitrance, Wilson pushed himself up with a few choice words about moping in mind. He ignored the mess in the toilet and kicked House's foot.

"Hey. House."

House stayed still. Quiet. A tired, pained, half-conscious expression on his face.

Wilson frowned. "Are you okay?"

House breathed in and out once, then his tongue darted out in a poor effort to moisten his lips.

"No," he sighed.

Eyes closed, body tight.

Wilson knelt next to him and peeled a wrist away from his abdomen. Pulse fluttering like a hummingbird's, skin tenting when Wilson pinched it. No sweating.

Wilson leaned back on his haunches.

"Pretty dehydrated, huh," he observed.

He didn't expect a response from House, and he didn't get one.

"Keeping any water down?"

"No."

Wilson sighed, putting a hand on the sink to lean a little.

"How long?"

House breathed slowly for several long seconds. Wilson began to wonder if House had heard him.

Then House sighed again. "Hour. Two."

He could hear how raw House's throat was.

"You saw Cuddy this morning," Wilson pointed out. "You were okay then."

He paused to let House speak. House merely breathed slowly in and out, jerking once at what Wilson assumed was a particularly bad cramp.

"They're giving you metoclopramide," Wilson observed.

He knew they were. He'd requested it as House's anti-emetic of choice.

"How long since your last dose?"

"Lunch," House breathed.

Lunch was nearly five hours ago. House should have had another dose at least two hours ago. Wilson's eyes narrowed, recalling the fight House had had with the director this morning.

"I assume you asked for more."

House kept breathing. Wilson assumed from his lack of response that his previous assumption was correct.

"They said no, or didn't bring it to you, or you didn't keep it down—" Wilson sighed irritably. "Help me out here."

House's face lost its remaining color as he lifted a hand to the toilet seat and tried to pull his body up. Alarmed, Wilson sprang up to give House room to move. Then he watched as House's arm strength failed and he collapsed back to the floor, already retching uselessly.

Wilson peaked at the toilet. A little bile. Very little. Not enough time between that round and this one for any appreciable amount to collect in House's stomach. He glanced back over at the clenching body of his best friend. House's torso had twisted so that he faced the floor. One arm curled up under his chest, the other grasping at tile as he tried to keep his head a few inches above a non-existent pool of vomit.

Finally, the spasms stopped and House's shoulders sunk inward while he gasped for air. He turned his head to the side but didn't attempt to readjust anything else. A miserable heap, Wilson noted.

"They didn't bring it," House said hoarsely, not once opening his eyes.

Exhausted. Dehydrated enough that dehydration was the cause of the vomiting now.

Wilson raised a hand to his forehead in frustration, glanced toward the orderly who was supervising his visit (and not paying attention), then knelt down again.

He plucked House's shirt. "All right," he said, gently grasping House's upper arm, "let's sit up."

He pulled House's arm and House tried to push himself off the floor with his other arm. Wilson felt the weight-bearing arm tremble, shake, and give out, but by that time they'd collectively leaned House against the wall and lifted him half-way up.

Words of encouragement at the ready, Wilson opened his mouth to speak when House suddenly stiffened, flailed for a few seconds, and slumped forward. Wilson caught him and eased him back down as he registered what had happened: loss of consciousness due to sudden blood pressure drop. Not uncommon, but not good either. House's pulse fluttered beneath his fingertips.

"What's wrong?"

Wilson started, head whirling around. Until he saw the orderly standing in the bathroom doorway, he didn't realize he'd called out for help when House had passed out. Reflex, he considered.

"I need a cup of water and a word with the doctor in charge of the unit," he barked.

The orderly filled a cup next to the unmade bed with water from a ubiquitous jug on the dresser.

She offered the cup to Wilson. "I can't leave you alone with him," she said and stood stolidly in the doorway.

Wilson put the cup down, paused a moment before responding to bite back the anger he felt at the clear case of negligence before him, and replied icily: "Then call someone else."

This she did, standing in the hallway and beckoning another person.

Wilson shook House gently and felt his muscles come to life as he sucked in a surprised breath. Bewildered, half-frantic eyes searched the small room, found Wilson, and connected the recent past with the present, then calmed as the surge of adrenaline wore off. His eyes slipped shut as if they'd never been open.

Wilson placed a hand on his arm again. "Try some water," he said. "Just a sip."

House lay quietly.

Not expecting an answer, Wilson rearranged himself so he could lift House's head up. To his credit, House tried to help, though he couldn't do much. Wilson spilled a fair amount on House's cheek and down his neck, but House dutifully swallowed the little bit that entered his mouth. Wilson lay House's head back down and watched House's stomach jump, trying to reject the liquid, even as House fought the reflex down.

Wilson closed the toilet lid and sat tiredly where he could divide his attention between House and the orderly watching from the edge of the room.

He waited. House answered none of his questions. Wilson noticed he wasn't shaking like he had been earlier, and guessed he'd sink into delirium in about half an hour. Maybe less.

Because he didn't get the medicine he needed. Wilson watched him breathe, still slowly, knowing he'd done this to himself. Taking a swing at the director of the rehab unit was a great plan to get through rehab. But medical professionals had an obligation to their patients that extended beyond personal grievances (even if House might not know it); he'd inform Cuddy in the morning. By that time House should be able to punch the guy again.

Dwight Lee Grier.

Sitting in silence, the words in his handwriting blurred and swam in front of him.

No rehab this time because he, Wilson, didn't want it. Thought he could do a better job himself.

And the first part had been easy. No evil unit directors to avoid dispensing meds. No—Wilson had stayed with House almost to the point of having their own shouting match, and had ensured that every symptom-reducing substance was delivered on time. Besides, as House had pointed out, detoxing was a piece of cake on the first day after the surgery that had so significantly reduced the pain that led to the morphine use in the first place.

"Gets easier after you've done it a few times," House had joked from his bed in the glowing aftermath of his first methadone hit. The bulky bandage around his thigh protruded through a slept-in blanket.

Of course it was easier: plenty of IV saline to keep him hydrated, once-daily methadone to wean him off the morphine, metoclopramide and loperamide to keep his insides inside him, clonidine and diazepam for restlessness (though Wilson prefer walking him down the hall), and more bad daytime television than he could watch—plus the badgering boyfriend, the pestering partner (and, in House's ruder moments, fuckbuddy Florence) to keep him annoyed. But nothing for the shakes and House hated the shakes more than anything else.

"I'll take your word for it," Wilson replied.

House smiled and closed his eyes.

Wilson, nearly two weeks ago, felt uneasy.

Wilson, watching Dwight Lee Grier tumble together on the page now, felt uneasy.

It was worse than watching him vomit two sips of water on a beige tile floor. Then, at least, he'd been able to drag House to the bed and run electrolytes into him once the supervising doc arrived. That hell was treatable. In this hell, even chemicals didn't work.

Because House had been off methadone for a few days now. Irritability and restlessness still had a tight hold on him, though the usual withdrawal symptoms had been very light. In a moment of stupidity, his rehab counselor recommended buprenorphine. House promptly snapped back that the level of Vicodin constantly in his bloodstream, low as it was, would throw him into severe withdrawal. He would know, Wilson reflected, having experienced just that during the first visit for Vicodin rehab. The idiot who'd given him buprenorphine before all the Vicodin had cleared his system, and the idiot who forced House to take the stuff when House knew it would magnify all the symptoms…. It shouldn't have surprised him, then, that House would bribe an orderly to keep that stuff away.

He'd known that for days that chemical help was out.

Probably this would come down to House's will to stay clean. If House did want to stay clean, he would stay clean. Wilson knew that. Only a few of his cancer patients had ever approached the level of willpower House possessed.

But Wilson didn't know what House willed. If he got bored or depressed, he could snatch a fix in under an hour, provided he wasn't in another city or state. There, he might need two hours.

Dwight Lee Grier didn't have to worry about any of this. For a moment, Wilson envied him.

Then he wrote himself a note to call House at ten, forcibly pushed aside all memories of prior detoxes, and made himself concentrate on the chart.

Because he always did his job, whether he could stand it or not.


	12. Sin

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

This chapter and the next chapter are both dedicated to the folks at the housewilson LJ who provided me with some excellent critical feedback regarding the story. Thank you!

* * *

**Sin**

Wilson locked his office door and took a moment to stretch and roll his neck and shoulders. The days when he lost a patient were the hardest. Today was worse. Not only had Dwight Lee Grier passed early in the afternoon, but an eight month old Leukemia patient, Latisha Donovan, had followed him less than an hour later. Nothing he could have done would have changed their outcomes, and he'd learned not to internalize patients' deaths, but these two still stung.

Because of House, he knew, as he summoned the elevator.

Because it was easier to fool himself into believing he felt a little sick over the patients' deaths than it was to acknowledge just how much House worried him right now.

House shouldn't worry him. He knew that, too.

But—he sighed as he crossed the parking garage—he couldn't stop worrying any more than he could stop breathing.

He called himself all sorts of juvenile names. Worrywart. Antsy pants. Nervous Nancy. He ran out of names quickly. Getting into his car, the corner of his mouth pulled upward of its own accord: House would know many more names.

House, House, House.

Wilson buckled his seatbelt and started the engine. Mixed as his feelings were, he knew he was going home. He didn't want to go anywhere else. No bars. No strip clubs. Just to House. To dinner and television and bed. To relaxation, he hoped.

Maybe they _would_ relax together tonight. Maybe tonight would be better than most of the last weeks' nights. After all, House had been good today. Remarkably well-behaved for a recovering addict who had to attend painful physical therapy on very little sleep.

Foot pressing the brake behind four cars at a red light, Wilson let his mind wander again.

House had burst through the door as though the office belonged to him—nothing unusual there—and promptly stretched out on the couch with a video game. Wilson noticed all the signs of pain and fatigue, and knew House was just waiting for the Vicodin to kick in and let him relax before his counseling session. Predictably, House snored through most of the hour and a half interval between PT and rehab.

Wilson had watched him sleep for a full ten minutes before he realized he wasn't getting any work done.

Then he'd had patients to see. Procedures scheduled. News to deliver. Meetings to attend.

He returned to his office a few minutes before House's rehab session ended. By the time Wilson had signed off on a few odds and ends and readied himself to join House in the cafeteria, the door burst open again, House barked out an order for a Reuben and disappeared through the balcony door.

Sitting in traffic, Wilson shook his head, this time at himself. He always did his job.

So he'd gone downstairs, waited in line, made sure House's sandwich was dry and pickle-free, and returned. House was sunning himself in the mid-May daylight, legs stretched out in the light, his head shadowed. Listening to something.

Wilson tossed the sandwich to him, hitting his stomach and eliciting a grunt Wilson found very satisfying, and plopped down in the deck chair next to House.

They ate quietly. Voices drifted up from the entryway—staff returning from lunch or smoke breaks; the grumble of patients—but the brick wall kept everything except the blue sky out of sight.

House finished his sandwich before he spoke.

"Hofstadter mentioned methadone."

Wilson chewed thoughtfully, only halfway through his own lunch. "In conjunction with you and your late night activity, or just generally?"

House refused to favor him with a sarcastic eye roll, preferring some distant speck no one but him could make out.

"Seems sudden," Wilson said, seriously this time as he bit into his own sandwich again.

House stared at the sky. "It is sudden." He spoke quietly. Thoughtfully. "He doesn't know what else to do."

"Then you should see someone else," Wilson said around a mouthful of sandwich.

House looked at him. "Who'll do what? Make me play patty cake with the other addicts until I'm all better?"

Wilson chewed, swallowed, and held House's gaze for a moment. "What do you think you should do?"

House turned his attention back to the sky. "Methadone isn't a good enough answer." He paused, then sat up and started getting to his feet. "Rehab isn't a good enough answer."

Wilson squinted up at him from the deck chair. "So what is?"

House started for the door before he answered, as he always did.

"Work," he called over his shoulder.

The door swished shut behind him.

Later, predictably, Cuddy found him and asked whether he thought House was really ready.

He thought House needed the distraction. In the past, whenever House had been given time to wallow in his various faults, the leg always got worse. Now that the leg was so much better, something else had to get worse.

And House was bored. Wilson understood that. He'd caught his first cold in years a few months ago and practically begged House to bring as much paperwork home as he could by the end of his second day of confinement.

If House thought he was ready to go back to work, then he was ready.

He hadn't seen House since lunch, but he imagined House was very pleased. He expected as much. Hoped as much.

Nearing the apartment, Wilson began to feel better. He tapped a beat on the steering wheel with his left thumb. Maybe they'd go out for dinner tonight. House would enjoy bothering the restaurant staff. Maybe some place with good steaks.

Wilson parked and jogged up the three steps to the apartment, whistling aimlessly. Steak would be just right.

Key in the lock, swinging his briefcase off of his shoulder already, and—the tune died on his lips.

The unmistakable acerbic scent of liquor permeated the room. Bourbon. Marker's Mark. He didn't have to see the bottle or to know the smell that well; he knew House: that was enough.

"…wasted and I'm _still _kicking your ass."

Wilson recognized the sloshed voice emanating from the couch and matched it with the scaly lizard-like space creature on the television screen. House was playing one of his video games against a pack of twelve year olds online.

"Yeah, go cry to your mama," House said loudly. "Bet you were a mistake."

Wilson slumped forward in the doorway, the life leaving him. The way the room smelled, the bottle would be empty. He let his briefcase slip out of his hand and his suit jacket slide off of his shoulders. Not even six p.m. yet and House was completely tanked.

A tousled head connected to an earpiece and microphone popped up. Glazed eyes registered recognition and the head thumped back against the arm of the couch.

"Gotta go, girls," Wilson heard him say. "Time for the big man to get laid."

The television winked off. Wilson shook his head and walked toward the bedroom.

"Hey," House called from the couch.

Wilson ignored him, sitting on the bed to take his shoes off. House was drunk. When House got drunk, House wanted sex. Normally, this was fine with Wilson because he was usually drunk and horny as well. But House would want sex right now and after the day Wilson had had, he didn't see how this situation could end without a fight and House passing out on the bed. Then he'd be alone until he was tired enough to sleep and faced with two poor choices: a cold leather couch or whisky fumes and snoring too loud to block out.

But worse than the situation was the cause of the situation—particularly, that Wilson didn't know why House had bought a bottle of liquor and drunk the whole thing in one afternoon. He'd be going back to work on Monday. Why had he drunk himself stupid?

Angry, confused, and somewhat hurt, Wilson took his time with his tie, his shoes, his clothing, making sure everything went where it was supposed to go. He could hear House calling him from the living room, but he didn't care to respond. Instead, he went over the reasons House might have to binge bourbon.

House was bored. If so, he would drink but he wouldn't drink this much. No.

His leg hurt. He had Vicodin for that. He preferred Vicodin for that. He wouldn't still be conscious if he'd mixed extra Vicodin with a full bottle of liquor. No.

He was upset. Yes. If anything drove him to hard liquor, it was emotional upset.

Upset about what?

Down to an undershirt and briefs, Wilson wandered toward the kitchen. Clearly they wouldn't be going out and since his day had just gotten much worse, he needed a beer immediately. House squawked something inappropriate from the couch which Wilson ignored. Upset about what?

Wilson let his body drop into the chair next to the couch and watched television while he drank. When half of the beer was gone, he turned to House.

"What's going on?" he asked as evenly as he could.

House leered drunkenly at him. He had pushed jeans and underwear out of the way and was casually fondling himself.

"I'm warming up," House replied. Slowly, deliberately, he raked his eyes over Wilson. "Nice outfit."

Wilson steeled himself against the surge of animal attraction. "I'm not doing this, House," he said tightly.

House laughed hoarsely. "Someone disagrees."

Jaw tight, Wilson stared House down. "He doesn't get a vote," he growled, shifting in the chair.

"He thinks he does."

"He doesn't _think _anything."

"I think he's thinking about something."

Wilson dropped his head into a waiting palm. "House—I—" he began, so frustrated he didn't know what to say or do. "Just—sleep it off."

"Can't," House replied. "Already took a nap. Not sleepy."

House blew a breath out through his nose and closed his eyes, concentrating on the flesh in his right hand. He knew Wilson couldn't resist the sight of him playing with himself.

Wilson glanced at House and picked up his beer, shifting in the chair again.

"Yeah, well, I really don't feel like it right now," Wilson muttered into his bottle.

House just watched him, a mischievous smile slowly spreading onto his face. "You always feel like it," he slurred.

Aware that House had an excellent view of his lap, Wilson placed the bottle between his legs and turned his head away. "No, I don't," he mumbled.

House smiled stupidly and sighed, sinking further into the couch. His eyelids fell to half-mast. He felt irredeemably sexy, and in his mind, sex radiated from him as though he were a porn star.

"Come on," House cajoled, "I'm sexy. You're—_incredibly_—sexy." House's smile jerked upward. He wished he was that beer bottle. "Come over here and be sexy with me."

Wilson sat up and folded himself until his eyes met the floor. Now that he wasn't looking at House or thinking about what House was doing, he felt more in control of himself.

"Look," he said seriously to the floorboards, "I've had a long day. I'm tired. You're—drunk—out of your mind—I don't have the slightest clue why—and I just don't feel like it." His eyes flicked to House's form. "Please—just—go to sleep."

"Already told you I'm not sleepy," House answered, completely unfazed by Wilson's speech. He lifted his head to look at his body and snorted at what he saw. "I am _really _drunk, though," he said. He brought his right hand up to join his left behind his head and smirked at Wilson. "You're going to have to do it."

Wilson stood and stepped toward the kitchen for another beer.

"I'm not doing anything, House," he replied. "Not right now." He stuck his head in the fridge and emerged with two beers. He cracked one open, tossed the cap on the coffee table, and flopped back down. "So sleep it off," he finished.

House observed him, still smirking. "Or you could catch up with me," he suggested.

"Thanks, I don't want to feel like crap in the morning," Wilson retorted, attention on the television.

"You've not even going to celebrate a little?" House asked with drunken sincerity. He produced an unsteady hand and held his thumb and forefinger slightly apart, squinting through them at Wilson. "Not even a little?"

Wilson swallowed a copious amount of beer and stared dully at the television. "That's what you're doing?"

House rolled his eyes. "Duh."

Wilson simmered, working his bottom lip back and forth against his teeth. At length, he turned to House and snapped, "A whole bottle?"

House made a wheezing sound meant to be a laugh. Then, upon looking more closely at Wilson, he said defensively, "What?"

Wilson sighed with exasperation. "Celebrating is waiting until I get home and having a few drinks. Or going out." He paused, working his bottom lip again. "It's not getting hammered before five."

House put on his best condescending appraisal face. "You've known me how long? I don't wait."

Wilson stared at House with disbelief, then clenched his jaw and turned away.

"Sometimes you should," he mumbled, holding the beer bottle to his lips. He drank the last of it and opened his third bottle.

"Hey. What's going on with you?" House asked, not a little aggressively. "I have a little fun and you get your panties in a wad."

"A whole bottle is more than a little fun," Wilson retorted angrily. "It's more than a celebration. But you're not going to tell me what it's really about, so I won't even ask."

"Buzzkill," House sniffed.

Wilson grunted into his beer, well aware that he was rapidly losing his high moral ground but not caring at all. He took another drink and put the bottle down, pressing his full stomach to force a belch. Too much liquid in too little time. He stared at the television, pleasantly buzzed, and let his mind loop the events of the past month until he felt himself stop caring completely.

After a while, he finished the third beer and went to pee. When he returned, House had already started snoring.

Smiling stupidly, he retrieved another beer.


	13. Repentance

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

Still dedicated to the folks at the housewilson LJ who helped me work through the end of this fic. The next chapter should be the last one.

* * *

**Repentance **

Wilson snorted awake, his mouth tasting like the inside of an old keg, around 2 a.m. Sensuous moans spread from the television, filling the room.

He turned toward the couch. House was…yeah…predictable.

Wilson sniffed at him, rolled his eyes, yawned, and pushed himself out of the chair which had modeled itself to his sleeping body.

House's eyes lit on Wilson's briefs, skipped once at the sight there, and traveled upward to affix themselves to Wilson's eyes.

"I see you're finally ready to join me," House said lazily.

Wilson sniffed again and turned toward the hallway. "I need to pee," he called. "Same thing happens to you every morning."

"No," House called back to Wilson's vanishing form, "it's the porn. Got you all hot and bothered."

The sound of the bathroom door swinging shut answered House. His gaze lingered momentarily on the space Wilson had just occupied, then he turned his attention back to the television.

Vaguely, House recalled Wilson being upset earlier. He also recalled losing several online video game matches to a bunch of boys whose voices hadn't broken yet. The taste of amber vomit that had woken him up an hour ago answered any questions he had—a grand total of none—and after a few minutes of watching Wilson snore and counting the beer bottles on the table, he'd searched for decent porn on TV.

Now he relaxed, left hand behind his head, right hand lazily stroking, and watched Wilson walk toward him, face neutral with just a hint of disgust, and turn into the kitchen. House glanced at the television. He hadn't upgraded to a pay-per-view movie yet; the soft core actors were trying to put together a plot. Boring.

Wilson returned with a full glass of water and stood next to the TV.

House enjoyed watching him drink. Then he enjoyed watching Wilson stare at him. Then he remembered that Wilson had been upset. He pieced his blurry memory with the expression of disapproval Wilson had trained on him and sighed a little.

"What did I do this time?" he asked in a bored voice. Wilson was always mad at him about something.

If he'd had the capacity to be as objective about this relationship as he was about everything else, he'd know that Wilson was rarely mad at him, and never without a good reason. But he lacked that capacity almost entirely.

Wilson's stare answered: _You know what you did._

House sighed a little again. "Whatever it was, I didn't mean to upset you."

He chose his words carefully, as he always did. Wilson had learned to listen as carefully as House chose his words.

"I'm sorry you're upset," House finished, adding a gesture that indicated he was only sorry Wilson was upset because it was killing the mood.

House watched as Wilson's face revealed an inner struggle so complex House could barely fathom the range of mood, emotion, and rationalization Wilson was experiencing. Wilson's jaw worked back and forth as if weighing two options; his eyes moved from House to the floor to a clean table he remembered crowding with empty beer bottles to a variety of other objects in the room; his right hand twitched ever so slightly.

Finally, Wilson looked at House again, having made his decision.

"Okay," he said.

He drained the remaining water from the glass and sat down in the chair again.

"This any good?" he asked, glancing at House and nodding toward the TV.

House studied him. Apology accepted. Wilson had made peace with whatever was bothering him. House began to smile.

"No," he answered. "It's crap." He sat up and advanced toward Wilson, leering. "I know something that's much better."

Wilson debated, decided, and leaned back in the chair with an assumed air of casualty.

"Really?" he said, the corner of his mouth curling upward. "What's that?"

House licked his lips. "Better if I show you," he said, standing up, and nodding toward the bedroom. "It's this way."

Wilson, smiling faintly, eyes full of meaning and intent, followed House down the hall.


	14. Absolution

Disclaimer, etc., in chapter 1

The end of the fic formerly known as Shorts. I'd like to write a prequel to this story but I don't know if that will happen. I hope the ending works. Some of the loose ends haven't been tied up; this story was very loosely written. I might go back and add short tie-ups, and I might not, because even though this is the end of this fic, the story isn't finished or completed by a long shot. This seemed like a good place to suspend the action, that's all. Use your imagination to fill in the rest.

Thanks as always for reading and reviewing.

* * *

**Absolution**

Later, lying in exhausted heaps on sweaty sheets, they stared at the ceiling, slowly coming down.

After he caught his breath, Wilson rolled toward the floor, got his shaking legs under him, and trekked toward the kitchen.

House closed his eyes, basking in sweet bodily sensations he felt so rarely, until a warm wash cloth landed on his chest. He nodded his thanks to Wilson, then shook his head at the offer of water.

Wilson shrugged, swallowed another mouthful, and placed the glass on the table next to House's pill bottle. He collapsed with a happy groan beside House.

House grunted in agreement and reached over for the water and a pill. He settled back and let an arm flop against Wilson's side.

For a while they did nothing but breathe and feel good.

Then Wilson breathed in and rolled on his side to face House.

"Can I ask you something?"

House's eyes shifted sideways. "You just did."

Wilson sniffed. "Then I'll ask you something else."

House watched him for a moment, weighing what he saw, then looked back at the ceiling.

"I know you'll only tell me what you want me to know, but on the off chance you'll be forthright, I'll ask," Wilson said.

Now House turned his head to the side to watch Wilson, sensing that whatever the question was, he wouldn't be able to brush it off.

"You're not about to ruin a perfect make-up screw, are you?"

Wilson looked into his eyes. House saw no answer to his own question there; only Wilson's intent to ask him something serious.

House sighed, somewhat impatiently, and waved a hand: _get on with it_.

Wilson studied him. He had no desire to ruin great sex with serious talk, but he knew House and he knew that this was one of the few opportunities he had to get House to be honest. Or closer to honest.

Wilson propped his head up on one elbow. "Why did you drink so much yesterday?"

Inwardly, House sighed with relief. This question was easy compared to the questions he'd imagined.

Letting his head relax back into the center of the pillow, House let out a small, genuine sigh.

"It didn't work," he answered, shrugging slightly.

Wilson's eyebrows collapsed together. "What didn't work?"

House stared at the ceiling. "Rehab. Counseling."

Wilson waited, watching House blink and breathe and think. Their upstairs neighbor stomped across the room, stood still, then stomped back. The squeak of wooden floorboards made Wilson wonder idly just how stressed they were.

Eventually, because House hated silence, House elaborated.

"I got home yesterday," he began, still talking to the ceiling and the now-absent neighbor, "and I needed a hit worse than anything I've ever needed."

He spoke slowly, his voice emotionless and distant as though he were relating someone else's experience.

"Vicodin didn't help." He snorted. "An entire truckload of Vicodin wouldn't have helped."

Now he began gesturing in the air above his chest, carrying on the conversation with the absent neighbor.

"I tried all the stupid rehab tricks, had all the invisible conversations. I paced. I smoked. I yelled. Nothing helped." His hands fell uselessly on to his chest.

And suddenly he turned to Wilson and let Wilson see what he usually concealed: pain, desperation, fear.

"Took two thirds of the bottle before I felt like I wasn't dying any more."

His voice grated—not because he wanted it to. And not being brave enough to wait for Wilson's reaction, House shifted his eyes back to the ceiling.

Wilson sighed and rolled onto his back, hands falling as uselessly on to his chest as House's had. He understood why House had done it now, and he'd forgiven earlier than he'd understood, but he was still stung.

"You could've called me," he said, speaking to the invisible neighbor himself now.

"There's nothing you could have done," House answered.

Wilson blinked, glanced at House, and blinked up at the ceiling again. "You don't have to do everything alone."

House shook his head and turned to Wilson again, surprised at his own honesty and the fact that he hadn't pretended to fall asleep yet. Because though he hated it, he knew that he needed to have this conversation. The part of him that Stacy had killed, that would never heal, that urged him to flee from any admission that would bring him closer to someone else—especially someone he loved—hadn't surfaced from the flood of endorphins yet. But if he really thought Wilson would hurt him, he would have stopped talking long ago.

"I call you, I end up conning you into bringing me a hit," he explained, searching Wilson's face. He knew he'd upset Wilson. He hadn't intended to. Wilson still didn't really know just how hard it was to stay alive from day to day. He couldn't know; House didn't want him to know. And he wouldn't change what he'd done yesterday if he could. But now there were some things in his past that he would change if he could; some things that he didn't want to do again. The biggest one, worse than falling off the morphine wagon again, was conning Wilson.

"I don't want that to happen," House added, softly, seriously. He shifted uncomfortably as the urge to run began to grow.

Wilson turned his head on the pillow, his hand out in appeal to House. "It's only been a few days," he responded.

House stared at the ceiling, always more disappointed in himself than anyone else could be. "It's been long enough."

"You can always check into rehab again," Wilson suggested.

His hand fell against House's side and he rubbed the space between two ribs with his thumb.

"It's better than the Molotov cocktail you tossed at your liver yesterday," he added wryly.

House said nothing, busy fighting the urge to run.

"I know you said it wasn't working, but what about last time?" Wilson asked.

House glanced over at him with an eyebrow raised. _What last time?_

"Rehab," Wilson clarified. "You made us think it worked. Cuddy. Me. You were there so long. So?"

House glanced over again. _So what?_

"Did it work?"

House's eyes shifted back to the ceiling, then to the bed's vanishing point beyond his feet. His face remained neutral.

Wilson usually read him fairly well, but he had no idea what House was thinking right now. So he kept talking.

"If it worked, you wouldn't be so opposed to going back," Wilson reasoned. "Or, you think because it did work for a while but now it's worn off, it isn't a good enough fix. And you don't like to admit that you need other people to help you. Or that you—"

"It never worked," House said, letting out a sigh he could no longer keep back.

Wilson would be disappointed. He was tired of disappointing Wilson. He'd learned recently that disappointing Wilson equaled disappointing himself. He hated being a disappointment. He couldn't stand to see that disappointment in Wilson's face, but he couldn't stop himself from looking for it either.

Wilson's eyes were waiting when House peeked over at him. Forgiving; questioning; wanting to know and to help.

House turned his attention back to the ceiling and sighed, shifting again—this time because he was uncomfortable with Wilson's scrutiny.

"I stayed the extra week because it wasn't working," House told the ceiling. "I thought if I tried harder…. But their techniques. They aren't for me."

Now he did look at Wilson. Sarcasm and self-assurance crept in from the wrinkles around his eyes.

"And you and Cuddy always gave me an A for effort." His expression softened and turned inward. "Always let me get away with doing my best."

He searched for the disappointment he knew he'd find. If he just looked long enough, he'd see it. But Wilson reflected only concern and compassion. _He would_, House sniffed to himself, shifting his eyes to the ceiling again.

Wilson wanted to ask so many questions, but he knew better. Contemplative House didn't like to be pressed. So he stayed quiet and kept observing the thin, tired, graying man, for once calm and self-reflexive, he always came back to.

House quieted also, turning on himself again. He always managed to disappoint someone. As much as everything he'd said made his skin itch to flee, the knowledge that Wilson needed to know these things kept him still and present in the bed that was their bed, that hadn't been just his bed or Wilson's bed for a long time now. Lately he found himself incapable of keeping anything really important from Wilson. Somewhere along the line, he'd gotten too old and too lonely to keep pushing Wilson away.

He felt the light touch of Wilson's fingertips on his shoulder and looked over.

"You're not perfect, House," Wilson said. "No one expects that but you. So stop trying."

Wilson's fingertips dug in, offering support, and Wilson smiled.

"Besides, you'd be boring if you were, and I hate boring," he added.

House's lip quirked. Wilson was offering him an out. Of course. Wilson was always generous. Kind. Too kind.

House's face flattened, nearly wrinkling. He blinked steadily and breathed steadily. He had to remain steady.

"What do I do when it happens again?" he asked, not able to keep his voice steady.

Wilson's hand crept from House's shoulder to his chest even as he noticed the substitution of 'when' for 'if'.

"Cross that bridge when we get there," he answered.

House shot him a look that indicated his dislike of that answer.

Wilson let out a breath and half-rolled his eyes. "You don't like uncertainty. It deprives you of the illusion of control. But you can't control everything. You hate that, I know, but it's true." His fingers dug in again. "You're trying. That's enough—because that's all you can do."

House grunted unhappily, eyes on the ceiling. Then, getting over himself, he reached up to place his hand over Wilson's, where it had stopped on his chest. He smiled slightly.

"You'd never make it in the Marines," he said.

"Nah," Wilson answered, relaxing on his side next to House, sensing the approach of sleep. "I'm Air Force material."

House shook his head. "You'd never make it in the Air Force either," he said. He cast an appraising eye over Wilson. "The Navy might take you."

Wilson sniffed a laugh, smiling, and burrowed into the pillow and mattress, lightly flexing his fingers on House's chest.

"I didn't mess up the make-up sex," he said in a triumphant if sleepy voice.

House snorted. "You'll have to try harder next time," he answered.

"Mmm," Wilson purred, half-asleep, "harder."

"Shut up," House answered, reaching to turn off the lamp. "You wake him up, it's your problem."

Wilson merely grunted, too relaxed to formulate a come-back. His hand went limp on House's chest and after a minute or two, he began snoring lightly.

In the dark, House smiled to himself. But it was a long time before he joined Wilson in sleep.

THE END


End file.
